They themselves are makers of themselves. -- James Allen

one People keep staring at Drake. Queers, jocks, and girls often stare at Drake. Drake has darker skin than most of us. This is not a tan. His father is half Venezuelan and half Austrian. His mother is just dark. His father has a large upper body, which Drake inherited. Drake’s face is chiseled and symmetrical and looks like the face of a model used to explain proportion. We are sitting in the booth by the window, eating burgers at In n Out. Nate mentions how the new Mercedes and BMWs will rarely be sold in manual transmission. You’ll have to special order them from Europe where manual is still the standard. Drake talks about having sex for five hours on fake Viagra he bought online from a Chinese website where you can buy the chemical equivalent to heroin, firecrackers and RU486. He met this girl online a few weekends before. Nate asks if the girl was definitely a girl, or maybe it was a boy who only looked similar to a girl. Drake doesn’t laugh. Instead says he thought she was at least fifteen. Nate laughs. Drake says again that he thought she was fifteen. At least. This is all happening and I’m noticing these guys sitting a few rows away from us staring at Drake, guys with football jerseys and baggy FUBU jeans and baseball caps bent in arches, worn sideways, and they could all be Mexican. And they could be the guys who crashed the party but I don’t remember any faces so I can’t tell. They keep staring, mouthing things I can’t make out. Drake and Nate don’t notice this. Drake is saying something which Nate keeps on laughing about, but my attention is on these guys who are not eating or drinking or talking to each other but only staring. At us. I nudge Drake. Drake notices the serious face I have, and a realization sinks in and the conversation and laughs die out. Drake looks up to see that these guys are all staring at us while now one of them is mouthing something slowly, exaggerating his mouth’s movements. He is mouthing what looks like you fucking faggots. His hands are outstretched to the sides like an airplane. I will fucking kill you. He keeps doing this. His friends, laughing silently. Nate stands up and we all stand up, and we go out to the parking lot. The football jersey guys follow us and stop before us and stand in what seems to be some strategic formation. The main guy has a seventy four on his jersey which is worn over his hooded sweatshirt. One of them is standing to the side, talking on his phone. The guy standing closest to us calls Drake punk ass faggot. “What the fuck are you going to do? I can say all I want and you bitches can’t do shit about it.”

Drake lunges forward with his fist and hits the guy in the neck so that the guy loses his balance and staggers backwards. Everyone rushes forward with clenched fists so as to just hit something. Drake gets hit in the head. I tackle one guy and start swinging my fists fast at his face until I’m kicked in the back and punched in the ear, at which point everything goes black. My eyes open and after adjusting to the gleaming lights of the parking lot I see Drake kicking one of the guys in the stomach. The guy lying on his side, curled up in a ball, twitching with each kick. Nate has the other guy in a headlock from behind. I’m hitting him in the stomach over and over as he coughs and gasps. Some girl is screaming and punching me in the back and kicking my legs.

People from inside the restaurant are crowding by the window, staring at us. Some are still eating burgers and fries and others are sucking on their soda straws. A little kid is leaning his face against the window, his face smeared on the glass, staring as his father or just some man keeps mumbling something which is making the kid smile and grin. His palms are on the glass. Fingers outstretched. Mouth open.

A white pickup truck pulls up and three guys jump out from the bed and charge us. I yell let’s run. Drake is on top of the Mexican guy, punching him in the nose and eyes, and he doesn’t notice the other guys coming. They jump on Drake and all at once start kicking and punching him. Nate runs to the car. I’m watching four guys kicking and hitting Drake. I run to try to pull Drake up from the ground but I get punched in the face. I nearly fall. Another guy starts kicking my back again and again until finally I fall. My body tightens up on the ground. He is shouting and spitting you fucking faggot. I’ll kill you, you piece of shit. I gasp between kicks. I’m going to puke. I can’t breathe. His heavy boots. The sound of sirens becomes clearer in the distance. His buddies are calling for him to come. Most of them are now in the truck. He kicks two more times.

“Watch out, fucking faggots. You’re not safe anymore. We’re everywhere, faggots.” I look up to get one glance of his face but all I see are streaks of lights and darkness and a blur of a figure floating over me. He has on a jersey that has a seventy four on it. The rumble of the truck

fades away in the distance. Drake’s face is raw meat. He wipes it on his shirt and says it burns. This doesn’t stop the blood from coming out of his nose and the gash under his eye. Nate laughs and coughs. Nate is leaning forward, cupping his eye as blood collects in a small pool and drips out from the cracks between his fingers. He won’t look up and continues to laugh and cough. I light a smoke. “Friends of yours, Drake?” “Hah. We need pictures of this,” says Drake. “What?” I say. “It seems they knew you, Drake?”

“Pictures of us in this fucked up state. Funny.” Drake is laughing. Nate looks up and opens his bloodshot eye and starts laughing, then squints in pain. Voices crack with laughter.

“Dude, Drake. So?” Nate persists. “Complete strangers. Never seen those heads.” “Let me get a smoke.”

two Mr Ellis is handing out papers while Holly and I keep giving each other looks. My face is purple and bruised. She never looked at me this way. Sometimes Holly chats with Mel next to her but now he is looking at her look at me and when Mr Ellis hands him his paper, interrupting, Holly glances back at me again. I watch her closely.

I notice Holly look at me and wait for me to look away but I don’t. I almost laugh. My face begins to hurt.

I’m waiting, and Mr Ellis looks at me. He hands Holly her paper, looking at me, then back at Holly. He holds her paper longer than most, moves slowly to her desk. This makes me think. Holly takes the paper, gets up, grabs her bag and starts leaving. I think of saying something. I stand up and say to her hey. She pauses and looks over her shoulder.

“Yeah?” “Mr O'Sullivan will be staying after class,” Mr Ellis says. He tells Holly that he and I will be a

while. Holly nods and leaves. Mr Ellis finishes handing out the papers and when all the students have left he starts doing something at his desk. I’m staring at the clock. I hear footsteps and people talking and lockers opening. I hear the sound of lighters’ flint grinding and the combustion of gas, small explosions. I need a cigarette. Mel and Peck are smoking in the parking lot right now. They’ll go to Matsuko’s and drink beer and watch TV, or play pool at Tanner’s, or get coffee at Starbucks if Taylor is working, and people will be there smoking cigarettes. I remind Mr Ellis I’m sitting and tell him I don’t have much time because of other engagements.

“What happened to your face?” He asks. “What? Nothing.” “I can tell nothing.” He waits for a reaction. “Ok. I'll say what I need to say and then you can

go.” “Did you like it?” I ask looking at the paper in his hand. He closes the door and doesn’t say

anything and sits down. “You going out for basketball, right?” The paper is rolled into a tube in his hand. “I played ball. Now I don’t play.” “You’re not going out this year?” He says I was pretty good and mentions one game where he

saw me play. Then he says why not? “I don’t want to go out this year,” I say. The red markings on the rolled up front page are

facing out and read lets talk about this. He’s saying something about senior year and he’s rolling the paper into a tube even more. He’s saying something about when he was in high school and how he couldn’t go out for basketball because he was too short, and then he loses grip and the paper falls to the floor.

“What about my paper?” I say and before I pick up the rolled paper he raises his voice a notch and keeps talking about when he was in high school. He then reaches for the floor seeing that I’m about to grab the tube myself. He says something about playing sports and keeping active. Something about opportunities missed, choices to make, and I sense he has some very specific idea about me and what I do although I never talk to him so I wonder where this is all coming from. Now the clouds are visible through the windows under the ceiling. I want to light a smoke. For some reason I laugh about it.

Everything is frozen. He’s not saying anything now, only looking at me. The fluorescent lights make me squint.

“What's this about?” I say. I don’t know if he’s done talking because he’s only looking at me with this long and calm gaze. In the parking lot where no one is smoking there are only a few people walking to their cars and when I see a small kid leaning forward while walking with a backpack almost twice his size I light a smoke and watch the overcast move from east to west. Manifest destiny. The day is coming to an end and it looks like a storm is on its way. Though it’s warm and the end of September. three I’m chatting with a girl from Willow Glen who signs off after I ask how many guys she’s had sex with. I chat with another girl who I keep asking questions and getting one word responses. I imagine I’m typing to a ten year old boy. I block the sn. Layla messages me about a party but she’s in a hurry because the words are all fragmented and curt so I don’t really understand anything about this party. And this is just as Nate logs on, tells me he’s rolling a spliff and since I’m bored and have been home for a few hours and haven’t done anything but get a triple shot latte from Starbucks before this and since getting home I’ve been sitting in front of the computer – I tell him I’ll be over. I jerk off quickly and leave the house and drive through two red lights.

On Wolff some tall kid skateboarding with a chain from his pocket waves at me like he knows me but I’ve never seen him and don’t bother to describe him to Nate. Things like this aren’t important. Neither is mentioning the cop that pulled over some girl I recognized from math this semester.

“Bud sales at school shot up, doubled since last week.” Nate's rolling a joint. GTA is paused. And guitar and synthesized sounds are in the background. On TV a woman is lying on her back, juggling briefcases with her legs.

“I hear acid is going around. Blake is coming down from Oregon sometime soon.” Nate keeps rolling.

“Take a good whiff of this,” Nate says and I smell the contents of the small jar. “Roll it already.” He’s twisting the end and probably can’t hear me. “Some kid at school got a 68 Camaro. Some sophomore. Black with red racing stripes. I’d kill

a school bus of nuns for one of those. “Is that how he got it?” Pause. “Know him?” “The guy’s a poser.” “He’ll get girls now.” “True.”

He’s licking the ends of the spliff, and then moves the blunt through the flame. The paper cracks. “The girls will jock big time. Like trick or treating.” I take a piss and notice the red rock stone on the ground in the bathroom, notice it more than

I’ve ever noticed it. In the living room on the wall an animal’s head hangs. Its eyes are black holes looking nowhere. In the fridge the coke bottle is empty and there is a pot of stew next to the milk carton I grab and I drink from.

Smoke is hanging at eye level and when I take hold of the spliff a whirlwind is made with my movement until I wave my hand in front of my face and the smoke unravels and thins out into the air. Outside the sky is getting darker.

“The folks think it’s incense.” “Almost out of milk,” I say, holding the carton. I take a swig.

“Now you’re out of milk.” He takes a hit from the spliff, his eyes on the paused game and my heart is pounding from the triple shot espresso. We pass around the bud, not saying anything. And it’s like this for a while until I ask the name of the song playing from his playlist. We take Vicodin he has from when he got his tonsils taken out. The smoke is clearing up in the space of the high ceilings.

Vicodin makes things slow down until I feel the blood in my legs and head move and pump under my skin, in my veins and arteries. The poster of Bob Marley hangs on the wall opposite the written up wall and I’m fixated on this for a while because, although this poster has been up here since freshman year, I now notice that in faint pencil markings in the middle of the cloud coming from Bob’s mouth it reads: that’s all folks. There are three circles penciled around the text.

“What?” “I dunno. I didn’t say anything.” The sound of fingers pressing buttons is slow and with each click Nate is beating a hooker. The

clicking stops and the game is paused while he relights the roach that’s left, then he exhales and passes it to me. I say something about not wanting more and right away he mentions getting to the next level, and he’s waving the roach at me. I take a drag, call him a bitch.

“Whatcha say… everythin' so…fast?” Nate kills people on the street and blows up a car. It’s these things that make me laugh until the poster of Bob and specifically the pencil marks on the smoke catch my attention again. So I stare there. Someone, while high, maybe they were tall, too, must have written it, but I don’t know what it is for or if it even matters.

Now people are trying to kill Nate. He’s running from everyone, trying to fight them off, and then he looks at me seriously – laughs. We both laugh. Everyone’s killing him, hitting, cutting, shooting him. He’s not doing anything to stop it. He stares at the screen for a moment and watches himself die, then looks in his drawer and pulls out a cigarette, empties it, and fills it with the crumbs of weed off his desk. I mention a party Layla said something about.

A long pause. “She must have heard it from someone. She never knows anything.”

“She found out.” “Usually she ends up calling me about…” “Who cares. We don’t know. She knows. So we’ll find out.”

“Mel might have something too. Parents split for Africa again. I heard that somewhere.”

four I find a book in the parking lot on my way to the car. The covers and first few pages are torn out. About to get in her car, Stacy sees me and walks over and tries to make small talk. Something about her classes, she mentions. Says she heard I got into a fight two weeks ago, said it was something about old lovers. I have no clue what you’re talking about, I say. But I gotta meet some people. I don’t feel like talking. I read the book at Starbucks and it’s short and goes by fast, that’s when my cell rings and I don’t bother checking who it is.

A group of girls are sitting at the next table. I pay no attention but their voices are loud and squeaky and after a few minutes this makes me uncomfortable. I lose focus of the words on the page. I put the book down and stare at cars passing on De Anza. The diffused sunlight from the overcast sky makes the outlines of the passing cars and the buildings and the street lamps look vague and blurry. I hear words without meaning. “Oh god.”

“You heard Jane’s fuckin' Beth, right? No? Well, do I got the news for you…” “I heard she’s a psycho. She acts like a jealous guy.”

“Yeah, she’s a lesbian.” “That’s so not true, Jane’s with Danny and they’re like always screwing every chance they

get.” “Yeah but Jane’s really jealous since Danny got his Camaro and is getting all this attention,

even from senior girls, so she decided to fuck Beth.”

“It’s a nice Camaro.” “Isn’t it a Mustang?” “Like yeah, but Beth and she have always had tendencies…” “Totally. Dyke is written all over their clothes. Like those colorful socks with those skirts.

God…” “And Lucy too, a total slut.” “I can’t believe Todd would do her. I mean, she’s got yellow teeth.” “Yeah but he was drunk.” “Really?” “Lemme get a cigarette.”

“Yeah.” “I thought so too.” “Lets go to the city and party.” “I heard there are some parties coming up.” “Yeah, some house parties.” “My stomach hurts.” “This latte is burnt.” “Abortion, anyone?” “Haha. That is so not funny.” I finish my coffee. I look at these girls, one who is smoking. On the table there are purses and

cell phones and iced coffee drinks. I make eye contact with the one smoking and she looks away then says something about me to her friends and for some reason they all seem scared or disgusted with me. A few moments pass and I pretend to be reading when I notice from the corner of my eye one of the girls is looking at me, so I turn to look at her and squint and snarl like a rabid animal and she looks away and says, yuck, gross.

Taylor sits down and we each smoke two cigarettes and talk about how in history class they’re going over Vietnam and how crazy it all seemed to be. He mentions the damaging effects of napalm and says you can make it in your bathtub. He says he read about this online. I say a line from a movie about the smell of napalm in the morning. They would test LSD on soldiers in Nam, he says. They flipped out after that. Imagine the Vietcong turning into fucking monsters in front of you. Scary shit. Some never recovered. He says war is fucked up like people. We should do it, he says. I say Napalm or war? No, acid. There is a long pause. Taylor asks about the book on the table, why it has no cover. He flips through it without really looking at any of the pages. “This guy - a guy wakes up as a bug.” “Yeah,” he says and drags his smoke, “like Goldblum in The Fly?” “Sure…but not really…” “That’s great.” Beat. Taylor says something about me having to pay for coffee someday, that I might lead Starbucks into bankruptcy with all the free coffee I get. For some reason him saying this sounds typical, maybe pathetic. I might be doing this on purpose, I say, for global reasons but the sarcasm doesn’t come forth as I’d expected. A tweaked out Civic with hip hop coming from it parks fast in the parking spot by our table. It hits the curb and the girls next to us laugh.

“Shut up!” Taylor says and the girls get quiet. “Johnny, the new guy here, is sleeping with the short haired girl. She has never paid for a

coffee, like you, and one day Johnny said she will have to pay him back somehow. She gave him head in the bathroom.” He shoots the girls a smile, says, “Sluts.”

“Don’t think you’re getting head from me as a thank you.” “I accept hand jobs too.” “Oh shit, it’s this guy.” Peck walks up and grabs the pack of cigarettes on the table while saying something, helping

himself to a smoke. He has burned CDs for five bucks apiece, with tracks and song titles written all in his bag, underground hip hop, he repeats himself a few times, the second time slower. He pulls out a wad of cash, still talking, now faster, and Taylor and I are only sitting and watching, and Peck asks if we need change, then says he might also need to get some change because he’s only got twenties and fifties. Taylor doesn’t look interested and I nod slowly but already I want to finish reading and get high somewhere on whatever anyone has available. Peck motions over to the girls who are now leaving and he says something to them and they reply, whatever freak. I do nothing, and this time

Peck shouts at them to hold on and they don’t say anything, only one turns around and she shrugs her shoulders and flips us off with her middle finger.

“So what’s goin' down? Did you guys hear about the lesbian party?” Peck’s beady eyes move fast. “Oh, you wanna do a trade for some buds? I'll get ya five CDs for a twamp. Fair trade.”

“Slow down, killer.” “No trades. I need cash.” “So ya gotta twamp? Is it Nate’s shit? Is he pushing weight?” “Mel’s party should be sick.” “How much you need?” I say. “I might just go to Aus--” “It’s Ante’s shit. Regular price. I’m doing a favor.” “Who is Ante?” “Don’t worry about it.” “Cool. So whaddup, Taylor?” Peck says to Taylor, who’s looking in the distance, blowing

smoke. “Nothing is up. Not a thing, Peck. Nothing at all.” Taylor says. “Hear about Mel’s party?” Peck asks. “Want to buy some buds or not?” I say. “Whachya lookin' at, man?” Peck says to Taylor who is noticing something across the street. “How much you want?” “Ok. Twenty. Deal.” Peck hands me a twenty and I give him a plastic bag which he grabs,

looking conspicuous. “Lemme know how it goes,” I say. Peck begins saying, “You need any acid? I got a whole mess of it--” “You have acid?”

“Do I have acid? Gentlemen, let me tell you-” “We’ll get back to you if anything.” “Acid? We’ll talk later, dudes,” Taylor says and gets up and runs across the street. Peck walks inside Starbucks with an improvised limp and looks around, then says something

to the Korean girl, Le, who’s making drinks behind the counter but she doesn’t seem to be noticing Peck. “What was that for?” I say to Taylor. “What for?” “Across the street?” “Does it matter?” Taylor says. Beat.

“Mel’s having a party. That’s the word,” I say. “I heard that it’s going down,” Taylor says before we have more smokes. Then we sit in

silence. Only sitting back, and he yawns and I cough, watching cars pass. “This blows. I need to get high.” “See the car parked there?” Taylor says after a long drag. “That is a Bugatti. You might never

see one of those again.” “I’ve seen three of those this month.” A young white guy with long hair and sweat pants and a cell phone hanging from his pocket

and messy hair walks out of Starbucks holding a tray with 3 cups and gets into the Bugatti, and driving off, the guy looks at us and nods. Taylor flips him off. Taylor says, I hate that color. five The road is glowing from the street lamps, glowing like it’s burning. Smoke is circling and filling the car as I take another hit and realize the Vicodin has worn off.

“I met four sluts online.” Nate leans up from the backseat. “It’s a total waste of life,” Drake says calmly.

“That’s fuckin' great you think so. Now I’m talking,” Nate says. “I could kill you.”

“When you die you’ll realize you wasted your life,” Drake says. “There’re sluts there. This one who is a total freak. We get all dirty online and she just doesn’t

give a shit. She sucks and fucks and is game for everything. I have pics. We’ll meet up soon.” “Nice.” “She’s probably a 45 year old pedder ass.” “I sexed a few after some days of chatting. This one girl, she’s making me wait.” “Pedder asses?” “No, fuck face.” We get out of the car and into the cool evening air on Bascom. The sky is heavy and dark.

There are no stars above, only black space. The streets are empty and silent except for the echoing of cars on 280, but this focusing on the subtle sounds in the distance is broken by us making our way through the entrance where peoples’ chatter and clanking plates and sizzling fryers take precedence.

“You can never really know.” “About what?” “Super freaks. Those freaks online, man, who knows how dirty they are. Girls like that got

problems,” Nate says. “Gotta double up those rubbers,” Drake says. “Haha. Rubbers?” “Some need to meet strangers and have sex.” “Nothing new.” A bus boy hears this and looks at us and almost laughs and this makes me and Drake laugh.

Nate says, bus boy prolly doesn’t speak English at all and didn’t understand. But he laughed, Drake says. And to this Nate says, so what.

We sit down in the booth and three coffees are poured right away. Nate says he’ll email me a link to the girl he met. I tell him I could care less. He continues talking about this with vigor.

The girl in the next booth with black wavy hair looks familiar. I say to her, Holly, and eventually she turns around after the third time I call out. It’s not Holly and as I’m staring at her and after she waits for some response from me, a response she doesn’t get, she sticks her tongue out and tightens her face in disgust. Sluts, Drake mutters.

I tell Nate I sold two sacks. In my pocket I have the other three. I slide two twenty dollar bills across the table and in return he slides a crumbled tissue where inside is a ten sack of bright green buds that have red and purple hairs intertwined through them.

“That shit kills brain cells,” Drake says. “So does football.” “And gel in your hair, too.” “Since when did you become such a hypocrite?” “Girls like guys in shape. Gel keeps my hair looking good for the girls,” Drake says and drinks

his coffee, leaning back. I half laugh and Nate nods his head from side to side and says wow twice. “Mel’s party is coming up,” Drake says. “That’s right. I heard lesbians will be there.” “Serious?”

Beat. “Lets go to Santa Barbara soon, one of these weekends.” The waitress looks tired and depressed. She gives us our food. “What for?” Nate says. “We can visit Smith,” Drake says. “Why else would we go?” “Doesn’t Julie live there?”

Beat. More coffee is poured. “Isn’t your pool heated?” Drake says. “It depends.” “On what?” “A lot of things.” “Like…” “If the pool guy cleaned out the leaves that day.”

“How does the temperature of the pool water depend on if leaves have been cleaned out? What are you on?”

“Listen, there are things you might never know about pools unless you get a pool yourself. So get a pool, get leaves in it, get a pool guy, and lets talk then.” Steam is circling off the water. There are leaves floating on the surface, leaves at the bottom. I cannonball off the roof. Nate does a front flip off the diving board, and Drake tries some maneuver off the diving board and ends up landing on his back and when we laugh you can tell he feels like an idiot but he tries to plays it off like nothing.

“What’s with all the leaves?” I ask. “One person can’t do everything.” “But it’s his job.” “It’s warm,” Drake says.

We throw around a Nerf ball. A while passes before Drake asks about Becca, reminding me I haven’t called her for a few days after she left a message. I haven’t seen her since the Mountain View game. I ask Drake about that girl with the funny teeth.

“Oh, her… she’s great. She loves my cock.” He’s standing on the diving board and he pulls out his cock, starts stroking it.

“Is that it? My fingers are bigger.” “I got me seven inches of cock and balls here. I could do amateur porn.” He begins to thrust

his hips up and down so his cock is slapping his belly over and over. “Lets see your cock, Stevo. Anne told me yours curves like a banana. Haha.” “How would she know?” “You tell me. If she only lost fifty pounds she might be cute.” “Now turn around and let’s see how tore up your ass is. Haha,” Nate says. “Dude, whatever. I’m the pussy killer.” He cannonballs into the pool and yells in the air,

“Pussy face, muthafucka.” We have a competition to see who can stay under water longest. Nate goes first and is under

for less than 25 seconds. Drake for 35 seconds. And my lips go blue at 47. I pass out and almost drown.

“You don’t look so good,” Nate says when I come to, with the purple sky behind his head and the moon off to the left. I’m lying next to the pool and I can’t feel my body for a few moments while I’m coughing up water I feel is inside my lungs, and when I’m able to breathe, I say I won. six The RPMs are revving high and everything in the windshield passes fast. No one is calling and I’ve left a few messages. I need to talk to someone. I don’t call Becca. I drive by new two story houses in the hills from where I can see the valley below. The sun’s not yet set. I’m holding my cell, wishing I had a joint, but instead I park near the wine yard at the top of the hill overlooking the valley and there I smoke two cigarettes while sitting in the car and for some reason I haven’t put a CD in the deck so there’s nothing playing and the silence is making me uneasy until I focus hard on any sounds in the distance and begin to hear cars far away on streets and the hum of everything usual. I see the Chevron on Foothill, the Home Depot where Mel worked during the summer, the Jack in the Box that’s always open when nothing else is, and after seeing the liquor store that has never carded me since I was a freshman, the small shortcut streets to take to avoid street lights, the houses of the people, my cigarette burning down to the butt, and my stomach turning – I think about calling Nate or Holly but am more lost with what I’d say. The sun has almost set and the clouds are turning orange and red and this reflects on the whole valley all the way across to the Milpitas Hills and towards Oakland.

My foot presses the clutch. I put in a CD and turn up the experimental techno playing on the San Jose University student station. I’m in third gear on Lawrence with the moon roof open and the street lamps going by in flashes causing a strobe effect on my arms and legs and on the seats and dashboard. The engine is working, vibrating under the floorboard, yet I hear an unusual shaking, a hard rattling. I change gears before redlining. I’m driving 100. Not another car is on the road. My

heart is beating fast. I slow down and take a side street before I’m supposed to. Pulled over, I’m sitting in the car and feel my heavy breathing. I’m crying and I can’t stop. I don’t know why I’m crying. I’m not myself. I laugh about this. I’m pathetic. Becca must be wondering why I’m not calling. I almost crashed and killed her. I’m sweating and the fast beat of the music, and the small objects in the distance get larger quickly but pass by only as colors and distorted shapes. Everything is blurry. I don’t know what’s happening, just that it’s something that’s been happening more and more. The lights from the street are flashing with the rhythm of the music, the clutch and how it seems to be sticking, the sharp turns down small streets, the sight of the valley lit up red like fire, where everyone is, all the places, why no one is calling, and just now Becca – all these things, I can’t stop from running and beating through my head.

There’s an ad on a bus stop for the last Matrix movie. Humans are at odds with machines. Someone is running and has on a reflective vest that’s clearer than the depth of the street, clearer than the shapes of the cars, the outlines of trees, everything else is muted and dark. I see this person in a reflective vest and hear music and nothing else and for some reason this reminds me of when I was a kid when I didn’t notice as many things around me. Everything was simple.

I went trick-or-treating with Mike in this neighborhood one Halloween in junior high. Mike used to live a few streets down but when his dad’s computer company was bought out by another computer company he moved to a rich neighborhood in the Palo Alto hills. I saw his new place once, the house with the five bedrooms on two floors, and only two rooms were in use, and the others were there to be filled with things his parents bought. I’ll see him at parties and try to play things as they were, try to relive old jokes and stories. The last thing I said to him was I need another beer. Then I walked off.

To stop the song from ending before I get home I press play and turn up the volume so nothing - not my breathing, not the grinding gears, not the engine’s rattle from under the floorboard – can be heard but the music. I come up behind a station wagon whose tail pipe is spewing black smoke. The license plate is framed with a UC Berkeley alumni frame. The bumper is rusted and chipped and falling off, the rear window is cracked. I look at the UC Berkeley frame. I’ve been on his tail for a long time already and he brakes and changes lanes and when my car gets next to his an old guy inside flips me off, saying something I can’t make out.

On Stevens Creek there are billboards I’ve never noticed, for banks and insurance and movies, and one billboard stands out. It’s solid white and has lights shining on it that make it glow, and in the middle of this white billboard, in small black letters, it reads YOU ARE HERE. There are no logos or names or anything that reveals what this means, where HERE is.

A whining noise and a bass- filled rumble speed by. A Civic and a Mustang going over a hundred, racing, and I don’t know who is winning. Before I open the door, before I turn off the engine, sitting in the driveway, the song comes to an end and I press send on my cell. On the second ring I hang up before Becca answers. I stare at her name on the screen and think about how she might answer and the words she will use. She will pretend she’s not expecting to hear from me, and maybe she’s not. She will not mention how many days have passed since we last talked. I will tell her about how I almost drowned, about how I’m falling behind in some classes, how my car sounds like it needs a tune up. She will tell me about her friends and school and little sister who is getting older, and I will listen to everything and make comments and ask questions because she’s the only girl I’m fucking.

YOU ARE HERE. seven The kitchen is under construction. Cupboards. Floor. Sky light. Counter. Etc. All being replaced. Made new. Made current. It’s been like this since sometime last year. Some kinds of problems with the contractors and such. My mom is sitting cross-legged and talking on the phone and is into the conversation, nodding her head, kicking her foot up. She sees me and waves like she wants to tell me something. The conversation heightens. She keeps talking and yet is waving her hands like she wants to tell me something and yet is too busy talking. On the way to my room I hear it’s going to look as nice as in the magazines. I’m getting that really big washing machine, you know that one on TV that was used to scrub car parts clean of grease.

I check email and delete spam and smut I’ve never subscribed to. Before deleting the last email with the subject line reading Giant Farm Caack I open it and scroll down and see a horse and naked girl wearing a cowboy hat. I look at this for a while making sure not to click anything in the email so that I won’t be directed to some page with pop-ups. I turn on the MP3 playlist and the first song that comes on says I’ve found a reason. I scroll through my phone’s address book and stop on Holly, then lock the door and am about to look at porn noticing the horse and naked girl. Nate sends me an email in this instant. I move the email to my friends folder and archive it for later and I close the window and begin to open porn links in my favorites folder, porn that I’m used to after so long which is why it doesn’t get me hard. So I jerk off to video clips that finished downloading today. That reason is you, the song says and doesn’t seem to fit the mood and so I press next, which randomly selects some Daft Punk song that is fast and upbeat.

Another clip finishes downloading. I open it. A young brunette is on her back facing the camera, rocking up and down. Her face and upper body and naked breasts are visible until the camera slightly pans down to reveal a cock moving in and out of her pussy. Zoom out and we see the brunette’s face is looking to the side, staring off screen. She has long black eyelashes. She’s panting as the guy is thrusting his penis deep into her over and over. She grabs her tits which stop violently bouncing. Her expression is frozen and blank. She blinks her large lashes, her head staring off screen focused on something. She’s panting harder and closes her eyes momentarily, her face muscles squeezing together in what looks like discomfort in sudden moments, and then goes back to blankness. I pause it when it is a shot of her face. She has on a necklace with a cross. I hear the door rattle and my mom complaining about something. I say to hold on and then close all the programs and open Google on the desktop.

She asks why I’m locking the door. She scans the room as if something is wrong which is odd because I always lock the door. She gives me shit about not needing to relax when I tell her I am just relaxing. You don’t have a job, all you do is go to school and you’re not even good at that, this is what she tells me a few times.

“What has happened to you?” “I’m tired,” I say. There’s no reason to be tired, she says. You don’t do basketball anymore, you don’t work, you

do nothing. I say to do nothing. “What can I do?” And I laugh. She asks about the paper. I say, what paper? looking at my cell. She goes on about how Mr Ellis is concerned for me, that he called the house and they talked

about me and that I should get help before – and I’ve scrolled to Holly’s number on my cell and am about to press send.

My mom follows me in the garage and keeps saying how concerned everyone is about me. I take my shirt off and toss it in the hamper. I’m not looking at her but her eyes keep looking at me. She wipes dust off the counter tops in the kitchen with her hand and this calms her down as she begins looking around at the lack of cabinets and the unconnected sink and so I ask when the construction will be done, and then I get a bowl of Fruit Loops but there is only a little milk and this can’t be good.

“It’ll take a while. These things take a while. It’s going to be the nicest on the whole block. People will be amazed.”

“How much longer…?” She says nothing and looks out the kitchen window.

Outside, everything is moving. I see shadows and lights reflecting through the blinds onto the wall. I’m staring at these reflections, lying in bed. I think the cashier guy at Target was hitting on me. He was commenting on the foolish things people buy and how people’s tastes vary so much. And he asked if I found what I was looking for. Was this a sign? Some code?

It’s getting harder to shift into first gear. I need to get a tune up but I know that I’ll need to schedule this a week in advance but then maybe I’ll just drive until I can’t drive any more, until I’m driving on some street where everything is unfamiliar and there are no people visible except for a few who are slowly walking hunched over in the distance – and the engine or clutch or something as simple to replace as the spark plugs will just give out and I’ll start slowing down until I roll to a stop.

Right now, I would smoke a bowl if I had some. But the buds wrapped in the tissue weren’t there in the small pocket of my backpack. On the wall, when the lights flash and the shadows move, for a moment I see what I think is a face. I know that it’s only the light coming through the leaves

that are blowing outside but I imagine that there is a meaning to this which I don’t understand, a reason for me seeing a face and not a cloud or a mountain or a bug. But what that reason is I have no clue. It’s like this, these lights, this imaginary face appearing and disappearing, until there are no more shadows at all. eight Holly is walking down the empty hall. She doesn’t notice me. She’s too far and I don’t yell because all the classes will hear and someone will see me and I don’t have a hall pass. Holly walks into Mr Coleman’s class. She’s wearing a v-neck that fits tightly and accentuates the shape of her breasts. She is not wearing a bra. She never wears a bra. She'll probably sit up front if Mr Coleman does his seating chart. Just before she goes in I make a psst sound but she doesn’t look because she doesn’t hear me.

This morning the first thing my eyes focused on were shoes in the corner of my room. This made me forget the dream I had which I vaguely remember was confusing or maybe just foolish but what was more relevant was that looking at my shoes I knew I needed to bleach the lace of my right shoe which has a red stain caused by ketchup from the hotdog I was eating for lunch last week. I look down and see the red spot on my lace and out loud I say I will get rid of you tomorrow.

I see a pair of girl’s shoes in the bathroom by the broken stall door. Before this, some girls walked out of the bathroom, their bodies jerking and folding over at the waist, laughing and choking and coughing.

I’m looking in the streak covered mirror. There is blood on my face. I rub my face to try and get it off. I shaved my face and cut myself twice this morning and applied and reapplied strips of tissue for over twenty minutes but the blood would not stop. Blood is splattered on the mirror as though someone spit or coughed on it, and the blood on the mirror where my face is reflecting seems somehow symbolic, but then I think and know that this is nothing more than an odd coincidence which makes me exhale a single laughing breath. I need new razors soon. Girls are coughing somewhere. Global weather patterns are changing. I buy smokes at 7-11 and light one by the phones. Someone drives by holding a cell to their ear. I’m holding my cell but don’t know who to call. Some kid with a skateboard from school who I don’t know but see at parties. He says hey bro. He pulls out a smoke and his mouth starts moving fast. We talk about people we know and parties we've been to.

“Everything is biased. You can’t even think straight these days. It’s the corporations, dude. They control everything.”

I take a drag slowly and watch the cherry move down the cigarette. He is saying something, muttering it. It ‘s like he’s repeating himself.

“What?” I say. “We had Nowak sophomore year. I was telling you about the inability to be objective in this

world.” “Yeah, that’s right.” My cigarette burns slow. “A critical thinker cannot truly be critical because of the inability to be unattached.” A pause.

“Dude, it’s cool if ya forgot.” “No, I remember.” “Maybe you remember that fire someone started in the back of the class?” “Ok, yeah. Crazy shit.” “Good,” he says. I’m seeing his shoes, skater shoes. I imagine people running and screaming.

I don’t know what this means. “Lemme tell ya about this deal of a life time.” “Is that right?” “For sure, dude.”

He reaches in his backpack and is about to pull something out when some lady who’s about to go inside the store sees this and slows down to watch.

“I got this deal, for right now only. Ya like to cook?” I don’t say anything. “That’s cool 'cause with what I got here ya don’t gotta cook. You only gotta eat.” The lady, who is middle aged and overweight and has stringy orange-colored hair, comes

closer with interest. “Wussup, I got room for ya too. Come closer,” he says to her. “I got here a set of custom made hand-crafted…” He pulls out a bag and inside are sharp

blades, “…serrated cutting knives.” The woman yelps in what seems like fear. “Hold this.” He puts a piece of rope in both my hands. “Now, this knife looks like your usual

house knife, right?” The lady nods in agreement. “Ya probably got these at your house now, right?” She says yes yes. “Now watch this common cutting knife, the knife you prolly got at home, cut through this

rope.” I hold the ends of the rope and he has trouble cutting through it. “See how poorly this cuts. It’s cheapy. Ya live in a modern world, ya need to cut with a modern knife. That’s why a serrated knife from Unicorp is best.”

He puts another rope in my hand and cuts it with another knife. He says these knives are for today’s modern homes and the woman seems very interested when he says this. He pulls my arm back as I walk away.

“Wait. And 'cause your time is valuable, I'll toss in with this set a butcher knife for free, but only for you,” he says and leans in and smiles a tooth-filled smile. The lady asks some questions about cutting duck and pork. The kid is holding my arm and I pull him off and the lady keeps smiling because the whole time he’s saying how the knife is needed for the modern home.

Again he mentions it’s serrated and can be used for everything. You can even cut wood and rubber and bone he says to me as I’m almost in my car. You’re missing out man, he’s yelling. I drive away as he waves a knife towards me. Down the street two cops are inside a cop car, drinking from soda cans and not looking at anything, staring out the windshield into the distance. nine I see my breath. The heating system was supposed to be replaced. This is part of the renovation. And this is part of the waiting.

I turn down the speakers and stare at Holly’s number on my cell. A jet passes overhead. The roar mutes everything and after this moment I press send, and after four rings I hear her voicemail. The recording goes like this:

Hello, this is Holly’s voicemail. I can’t get to your call so try again later, or if you leave a message just maybe I’ll call you back. Bye, bye.

The tone beeped moments ago and my silence is being recorded. Her voice replays in my mind. I hang up. My cell phone rings.

“Did ya here about Julie OD'ing?” “Drake?” I say. “No shit?” “No shit. She was doing nitrous in the bathroom until she passed out.” “On campus?” “Yeah. She musta done enough to kill a race horse. Anna found her in the stall foaming at the

mouth.” “What else happened?” “I dunno. Ended up goin’ to emergency or somethin' but I dunno.” “Crazy.”

Beat. “Ya going to Sean’s party?” Drake asks.

“I’m going to Mel’s.” “Bull shit.” “Folks are out and he’s got a keg. Haven’t heard about Sean’s party.” I’m looking at a flyer on my desk that someone handed me at school. Wasted to Get Reasons,

it reads. Pictured in a high contrast black and white print are two girls kissing. Go to Mel’s in small print below.

“Did Sean make a flyer?” I ask. “What flyer?”

“You should stop by Mel’s place later,” I say. “Lesbians will be there.” “Something to seriously consider.”

ten On the LCD screen above the register it reads YOU ARE HERE. I ask the lady what this commercial is for and she says, what commercial? I say this commercial, pointing to the screen that shows a two-for-one toilet paper sale that just popped up. The lady has circles under her eyes. She looks at me like I’m one of many foolish customers and then she looks back down.

In the next aisle over I see a familiar face from the acting class I had at De Anza last summer. The girl’s name is Mary. Mary has bleached streaks in her dark messy hair. Mary and I make eye contact and I look away. Before this acting class, during the fifteen-minute break and after class, people gathered on the steps outside and talked and smoked cigarettes. This one kid was always talking and he was always getting Mary’s attention, making it impossible to get in a word edgewise. Mary would be so interested in all his words.

Mary is looking my way now. This guy was always going on about his friends and the things they did every night and

everyone around would listen to him. Once it was a train ride to San Francisco and hitchhiking back, drunk. Mary leaned into his stories. After class Mary and this guy would walk off together.

Once the guy didn’t show up to class and that day I gave Mary a ride to her car that was in the parking structure on the other side of campus. I took a while to find a CD, adjusting the mirror, making small talk about the class before I even started the engine. She had twitchy reflexes and seemed hesitant about moving a muscle and speaking. I told her she was a good actress. She wanted to move to LA and be an actress for fun and make a little money on the side but what she really wanted to do was be a vet because animals are better than people she said. I asked about the guy and she said they were just friends and that he’s really needy. I’m free as a bird, she said. Her twitchy movements continued and her voice seemed to vibrate. I told her I wanted to go out with her and I asked for her number.

“Are… you sure? I think you’re nice. But, I have problems. I mean I have a lot of problems.” “We could just go out sometime. For milkshakes,” I said. “Yeah, but I’m just… warning you. I’m seriously messed up. You might not like me. Just telling

you. I have problems.” I was quiet for a moment and watched seagulls circling and fighting for food in the parking lot. It was late. There were few cars on the top of the parking lot. The lamps went on.

“We all have problems,” I said. “Do you have a cigarette?”

I pulled out a smoke. We took turns taking drags. “I never have the chance to talk to you. You’re always with that one guy.” “I’m so ugly. Why would you want to talk to me?” “Yeah. It’s just that you see something and you think there is something there and it’s only a

one sided thing.” We became silent and took three drags each. “And you think that if it was both ways, not just one sided, it could be so good.” Some more

drags. “What do you mean?” The cigarettes were done. We started kissing. Suddenly she stopped and said she had to go.

Before she got out she asked if I had one more cigarette. “That was my last one,” I said.

I got her number and called her once which was when she told me she was sorry for acting so weird in the car. She wanted to get milkshakes. This was the last time we talked. I’d watch her say her lines in class without breaks and without stopping. She was confident in front of everyone. And this was usually after the teacher had us run around barefoot because he said it was shedding layers and we needed to be as naked with each other as possible to really understand. During those times in class Mary did not stutter or twitch. She’s looking my way. As the computer screen in front of me is advertising bagged salad and the floors are so glossy I can see myself from below and the cashier lady with the circles under her eyes is looking down, and my trying not to look towards Mary who is facing my way – I swipe my card and grab the smokes and milk before the cashier lady can pull out a bag and I walk through the automatic sliding doors that open fast enough so that I don’t have to slow my stride to go through. eleven Drake picks me up in his lifted Tahoe and inside there are two blond freshman girls I’ve never met, dressed in skirts and tank tops. And there is Kate who has red hair and is sitting by the other window. She waves at me slowly and smiles like she’s high. Adam is sitting shotgun. Jurassic 5 comes through the stereo. Take it back to the concrete streets, they say. The blonds are leaning towards each other saying something and then laughing. Adam leans in to Drake and they laugh, too, then they look back at the blonds, then at me, and laugh again.

“What’s goin’ on?” I say. Kate notices me saying this before the blonds next to me do, and Kate nods at me. She can’t stop smiling.

“Whatcha say?” Yells the blond. Kate shrugs her shoulders and looks back through the window. “What year are ya?” I ask the blonds next to me though I know they’re freshmen. One leans

forward, her hand on my knee, and she says something and I don’t hear her. She continues to say something, trying to speak over the music, and I can’t make any of it out even though I feel her breath on my ear and neck. Her friend is bouncing to the music and leans towards us to try to listen but after a moment goes back to bouncing. Adam turns around from the front and nods at me.

“Aren’t you on varsity football?” I hear her say, her breasts falling out of her shirt. Beat.

She asks the same question again. I don’t respond right away, I’m watching the graphics on the deck moving with the lyrics. Explosions and waves and moving lines and dots and then there is a car racing and then a sunset over a beach and it’s changing into something else now.

“Yeah.” Drake and Adam are silent, watching the street ahead moving with the music. “Sure, I play football.”

“Wait. What?” She starts bouncing to the music at a particular point when the drums start hitting harder so that both girls are bouncing and laughing. I look at Kate staring out the window with her hand holding up her head from swaying too much. I say something under my breath and no one hears. I don’t repeat myself.

“It’s too loud. What?” Beat.

Kate looks my way after staring out the window. Drake laughs and reaches back and grabs one of their knees which makes them look at each other and laugh harder. Buildings and cars and street lamps pass by blurred. The blonds bounce and sing with the music and Drake laughs again and it’s a good thing that I’m already feeling the coke drip down my throat. twelve

It was in Prague. I kept bumping into girls, getting smoke and sweat in my eyes. A group of girls had boots to their knees and small skirts that showed their skinny thighs. Roman sat and watched and smoked cigarettes, moving slowly, drinking his tonic water even slower.

“Go talk to her.” He pointed with his smoke. I danced near one girl who smiled at me so I talked to her but she didn’t understand English and was probably thirty and about to fall over and she had eyes rolling in her head.

After a few more cigarettes Roman and I walked out into the dark streets, and Roman said that the world was shifting in power and he said everything moves westward throughout history in waves but the problem was that everyone left behind in the wake had to be convinced that everything was still in order but this was not easy and people often revolted because of this. But they revolted in ways seemingly indirect. Cheating and lying and stealing from others but mostly just themselves. Not on any large scale but in small, seemingly unnoticeable ways. Domestically. And sometimes people aren’t aware of how once things were better and so they think that the way things are now is the only way they can be. I didn’t ask him to elaborate on any of this. He simply spoke out.

We bought stale bread from a corner shop where a family was watching American TV behind the register – an episode of Cops. I made small talk with a group of guys in leather jackets about any bars the area, who all had shaved heads and smoked outside the store. Roman said not to talk to people when you’re high because if they know they will mess with you. One of the guys with a paper bag in his hand said if we want girls for the night we could go not far down the street and take a few turns and neither Roman nor I really paid attention to what he said. It was warm and the moon was full and we were the only ones around, moving down the cobble stone streets. “Your pupils are huge,” I said

“Your whole face is shaking.” “How can I make it stop?” “It’ll go away by itself.”

thirteen Someone: hey what up Me: who this b Someone: i saw your profile online Me: where ya from Someone: westside Me: whats your name Someone: r u bi? Me: pussy only Someone: your good lookin Someone: i mean that in a guy way Someone: you know any girls who are down to get fucked by 2 dudes Me: not really Someone: where you work at Me: no where Someone: cool im a warehouse guy in a lumber store Someone: maybe i can hit up one slut i know Me: u a fag? Someone: i like ass and getting head Me: from dudes Someone: head is head n ass is ass Someone: i’m always the man

Someone: so where you live at Me: so ur queer Someone: naw. so u down to tax a fine hoe 2nite Someone: i can call her up and see if she’s down Me: try it Someone: your good lookin Me: queer fuck Someone: hold up I’m callin this slut Someone: whats your number I’ll call you when we can meet up Me: 408… Me: hah queer Me: has signed off fourteen No moon in the sky. Violet calls. I let the phone vibrate. I grab a basket and go to the aisle where liquor is stacked on shelves. There are few people in the store. Lights flicker. Shelves of plastic covered items, items in tubes and jars, are all frozen still and the hum of the refrigerators and the squeaking of a wheel somewhere in the store makes me irritable but only a little. Around the corner a lady with a basket is staring at a promotional island of ketchup. Some kid with zits and a red apron walks by while I’m scanning the beer. He asks if I’m looking for anything. I say I dunno what I’m looking for. He says ok and keeps on walking.

Violet calls. I hang up. I grab two 24 packs and a handle of cheap vodka and approach a line at register five, the only

register open. A tabloid magazine has a picture of a space ship and a fat lady on the cover with her mouth open, screaming, with the caption, Aliens Kidnapped My TV. Ashley Simpson is on another cover and it reads, be seduced by any man you want, repeatedly. I grab a Sports Illustrated with some no name model on the cover and flip through it as the line starts moving after four minutes. Trying to get to the centerfold, instead I come to a full white page with small black letters in the middle, it reads YOU ARE HERE. Someone calls my name and I look up. In the front of the line, two people ahead, Mr Leonard is looking my way.

“How are you Steven?” He chuckles. “Doing alright, Mr Leonard,” I say, moving the case of beer with my foot behind the person

ahead of me. The freshmen classes this year are not as talented and creative as the older classes. He says young people are losing their creativity. I nod and say oh really. The line moves and he’s standing to the side of the line to talk to me. The wrinkles in his face are deeper since I last saw him.

“Something is missing,” he says about this year’s freshman. He asks about how my drawing is coming along. I am going to be an illustrator, he used to say. He used to always talk about persistence. This time he mentions nothing of it. The line moves and Mr Leonard continues to talk. I tell him I’m applying to colleges and drawing daily. I tell him everything’s great at home and that my classes are going good too. That’s great he says.

The person before me takes his change and picks up his bags and walks off. Mr Leonard says are you up to no good tonight or what? Chuckling. The register lady waits for me to put something on the belt. She says in a Mexican accent what you want? Mr Leonard is standing next to me. The case is at my feet and I wait for something to happen. A pause. I hesitate and the register lady says are you buying anything or no? I pick up the case and put it on the belt.

“And a pack of Parliaments,” I say. After looking at the case of beers he chuckles and says, fun night, yeah.

“You know… I was young once, a thousand years ago I did the same things,” and he says something else but the lady is asking me for ID. Mr Leonard walks off after hoping all the best for me and patting my shoulder. The items are scanned, the lady looks at me once, twice. She asks for my ID. I pull it out.

“This is not you,” she says looking me up and down, then at the ID. “Are you kidding me? Take one more look.” “My mistake.”

fifteen Subject: Double Fukked Perfect Blond Sweet Babe Double Hardcore Pussy Fucked Movies Slut Double Fucked & Cum Covered Gangbang Horny Short Haired Tanned Get Double Fucked Movies Freckled Teen Sucks Cock & DPed Pussy Gang fuck Angela Gets Double Fisted sixteen There’s a Mercedes SUV in the driveway, Christmas lights are wrapped around the columns outside the double doors, and bass is coming from inside the house. Kate and I walk through, talking about films. James, films should be used for social awareness. This is what she tells me. Entertainment itself is rather cheap. In the car she mentioned some films playing at the Camera theatres and how we should go sometime. She keeps calling me James.

Adam and Drake follow behind with the freshmen on their arms. We enter through the double doors where it’s hard to hear Kate say anything. This does not stop her from trying. I notice Dan. He nods from across the house, from in the kitchen. He’s talking to some sophomore girl I heard is easy though I cannot confirm that. Peck and Jeff are sitting on the couch watching Blind Date on the flat screen as Peck’s making comments Jeff doesn’t seem to be listening to.

“Sup Stevo?” Peck says. Jeff holds up his cup, not looking my way. “What’re you on?”

“The question of the night,” Jeff says, not looking, lifting his beer to his face. “Stevo, get wasted and find reasons,” Peck says and laughs. Above the doorway a banner

reads in bold letters Wasted to get Reasonz. Standing by Julie and Jen and Shanna and others I’ve seen around on campus Nate’s talking to some kid with dreads.

“You say you’re coming, then you’re not and now you’re here.” “Mutha fuckin’ Houdini.” Their hands exchange something and the kid with dreads says later man, and walks off. “This is a business trip.” He pulls open his shoulder bag to show dozens of plastic Ziploc bags

filled with glowing green buds. “Kate, Nate. Nate, Kate.” I say. “Freshman year, we had a class, I think,” Drake says. Kate nods but is looking somewhere

else. “You transferred because of drugs, or something like that… right?” Kate says. “No, it was because of child porn,” Nate says and laughs. “Wait. Yeah, I remember. Some kid bought GHB off you and ended up in the hospital. Almost

died. You’re that Nate,” Kate says. “Ugh, no. I’m the child porn Nate. You have me confused with someone else.” “You’re playing jokes on me now. Say it straight,” Kate says, leaning on my shoulder. Vince walks in from the backyard, Vince, who sold me mushroom dust and said it had enough

psilocybin to reach God.

“You’re the worst drug dealer I’ve ever dealt with, Vince,” I yell. “You have the tolerance of a cripple,” he replies and shakes my hand and squeezes by the

crowded kitchen with a few other people. “Number one on my hit list. Bitch.” “Tell me where to show up and I’ll be there for the showdown,” he says and pushes his way

through the crowd. Nate’s phone rings and he looks at it for a while. “Shit. I gotta get this.” He answers with, how

did things go down, and then he walks off. I grab vodka and orange juice from the counter and make two drinks in red plastic cups. Kate

and I talk about the first times we smoked pot, about Nate at Lynbrook. We make rounds in the back yard where Mel and Beth are standing around the keg talking and smoking. We shoot the shit about Mel screwing some 23 year old with a kid. He told her he was 25. The DJ is spinning Biggie Smalls from the open garage.

“This music is too damn loud,” someone says. “This guy’s alright. Good rhythm.” “Remember the time we went to Walden’s?” Jeff says when he comes up and lights a brown

cigarette. I don’t remember much about Walden’s and what we were on. Jeff says he passed out and

woke up the next morning, not knowing anyone, or even where he was. He took a bus back to his place and found his car was broken into and his stereo was missing. He found the stereo installed in his neighbor’s car so he stole it back.

“I don’t remember getting home that night. I was so high I thought I was home at first, until I went into the kitchen where someone was doing coke off a cookie sheet,” I say. “I was going to say, ‘Mom, is that you?’”

“I forgot the meaning of home, the purpose of words,” Jeff says, laughing. “Words are to expose what is usually concealed.” People are rapping and beat boxing, and among them is Josh. Josh nods at me and I nod

back. The people I don’t know are probably from Monta Vista or Lynbrook although a few people have sweaters that read Stanford and UCSB. Kate and I drink more mixed drinks from red plastic cups. I don’t see Holly anywhere. The conversation is picking up. Kate's American Spirit cigarettes burn slowly. She says it’s healthier tobacco. I say it’s smoke in your lungs anyway.

“It’s my life,” she declares. Beat.

“We believe what we want.” We talk about classes and teachers until I steer the conversation elsewhere, about what she

did over the summer. She went to Europe with friends and wants to live there someday and teach English. I say I’m going to do the same soon, maybe after graduating and this is enough common ground for her to start grabbing my arm and bumping into me a little more now. Her words are slurred and she is squinting at me. She broke up with some guy a few months ago. Fucker broke my heart, she says. No one breaks my heart. She says her stomach hurts, like she’s going to puke soon. I ask for another cigarette. I tell her she should have one. A wind moves over her red hair and the smoke clears away and that is when I really notice the pale skin on her neck and face reflecting the light from the moon. Maybe she will sleep with me tonight.

“Why haven’t I seen you around more?” I ask. “That’s funny.” She takes a drag. “I always see you.” I take a drag and say nothing, only look

around at everyone laughing and staggering to and from the house, rapping, smoking from pipes, nodding, fucked up, out of it and lost.

“We had chem honors but you switched or something,” she says. “Switched three classes and dropped one. Might drop Mr Ellis, too.” I say. It’s hard to keep my

head from spinning, and the twinkling from the Christmas lights and tiki torches and the porch light hanging on the side of the house makes its way through the smoke lingering in the air, smoke from the cigarettes and bud and barbeque, and sometimes it doesn’t come through at all and leaves patches of diffused darkness.

“We talked at a dance last year? We talked then. I think.” “I don’t go to dances.” I put my face in my drink. “I can’t remember last year that much.” Another drag. Dan walks

up. “Folks.”

“What’s this I hear you’re not going for basketball? You were gonna be starting.”

I take a drag. “I dunno.” Pause. “I might get a scholarship,” Dan says. “Congrats.” I exhale. “Where you going for Uni?” “Dunno yet. I’ll probably go to De Asia at first, but I dunno.” “Ha. Cuperchino. USC. University of South Cupertino. Ah ha.” “Nice.” “Yeah. That’s cool.” “School’s overrated,” I say. “Well...” “What else is there? Work?” Kate says. “I’m looking into being a street performer in San Francisco. Kinda like the bushman. But I’ll be

bigger. Maybe like a hedge-man. Or a tree.” “Or just be a beatnik and hit the road,” Kate says. Though she’s looking in Dan’s direction, her

mind is somewhere else and this is obvious by the way she is now looking up at the smoke and stroking her beer. Dan nods and sips his drink and doesn’t know what to say. He has on cargo pants and a polo sweater. His shoes are white, some kind of skater brand. The conversation drags on. I’m on my third drink, and keep on drinking, nodding to what’s being said, smoking. Mel comes up and grabs me in a half Nelson so I spill my drink on Dan’s sweater. Kate laughs. My bad Mel tells Dan and pulls me aside.

“I gotta show you something,” he says. Walking away I hear Dan asking Kate about what school she’s gonna go to. And something about his scholarship. She says, what?

“Some blonds, lesbian freshman, are in the bathroom sucking face,” Mel says and almost shouts. We’re walking through a crowd in the kitchen and a few people say what’s up.

“That’s it?” I say. “What?” “The blonds.” “Yeah?” “What?” I shout following him through the crowd. “I have a surprise.” “I know. What is it?” I put the cigarettes out in a beer in the living room where Nirvana is

coming from the stereo and Peck and Jeff are watching Girls Gone Wild Exposed. We push our way upstairs through a crowd now larger than before. The door is locked behind me. It’s dim inside and the only light is coming from a lamp covered by a red shirt on the dresser. Portishead is coming from the computer on the desk where an Asian girl I don’t know is snorting lines. She’s sitting on some Asian guy’s lap who I think goes to Lynbrook and knows Nate if not buys buds from him. Everything is slow. On the bed are two girls, one Asian and the other Hispanic. They introduce themselves as Lisa and Nikki. Lisa is new to Cupertino and I hadn’t seen her around too much but heard she likes to party, and I think Jeff might have had sex with her a few times. Nikki’s pants are undone and pulled down to her mid thigh and she is just sitting there and smoking and moving her head with the music.

“This is Stevo,” Mel says to no one. Everyone is high. “The next line’s for him.” “Wanna beer?” Lisa says and hands me a warm can I open and take a large swig from. “Why didn’t we chill over the summer?” Mel says. “I dunno. Lots of shit this summer.” “I hear ya.”

Beat. “Did they find your brother?” “They’re not looking.” I say. “Why didn’t ya call earlier?”

“I dunno. Shit…” “Yeah. “I dunno.” “Your line’s ready, bro,” the Asian guy at the desk says. His name is Anton. I grab an empty

Bic pen. There’s a pile of white powder and a few lines next to it. This reminds me of the summer. This reminds me of being in a hotel room with the air conditioning on high and being dizzy from coke, not sure what to say, or if I even want to say anything, watching some girl get up from the floor by the bed and walk over to the counter by the mirror and grab an empty glass and try to spit in it but I can tell her mouth is dry and so nothing comes out. No one is talking. Everyone is somewhere else.

“Where’s Nate at?” Mel says. I say nothing and shrug my shoulders, lean forward, take half the line in one nostril and half in

the other. “Yeah.” Somebody mentions the OD'ed girl. “Yeah, I heard about that. Guess she was snorting crack in the bathroom or something,” the

guy says. “It’s going round.” “Crack?” Lisa says. “It was a birth control OD,” Nikki, who’s rolling a joint on the bed, says. My teeth and tongue are numb and I’m touching my cheeks which don’t feel like my own. “I

can’t feel my face at all,” I say, and Mel thinks it funny and laughs. “It’s good shit, yeah,” he says. The joint is being passed around and smoke is everywhere. We do more lines and I finish my

warm beer before starting another. I’m talking with Nikki who is on the bed next to me. Her pants are off and she keeps rubbing her legs and licking her lips, leaning back and forth, drag after drag. We’re talking about people we know and parties we’ve been to and at that moment I am sure it was Jeff who had sex with her. She has on a string strap top with flower designs. It’s a shirt I’ve seen everywhere but she looks good in it. Mel and Lisa are kissing and the guy from Lynbrook is sitting at the computer looking at movie stats because he was asking about who the director of that one film was, and Mel and I kept saying what is that one film? This happens while the girl who was sitting on his lap is now on her knees pulling out his cock. Nikki and I are kissing and my hands are in her shirt, she’s breathing hard and digging her nails into my neck so hard that I have to pull away a few times until finally I swing my arm which hits her face and this makes her smile while her eyes get glossy and red. She says the word again. Mel reaches over and feels Nikki's breasts while he’s licking Lisa’s neck who just took off her shirt to reveal tight and fake looking breasts. Nikki reaches to touch Lisa’s face who starts sucking Nikki’s fingers and is making moaning noises. A knock at the door doesn’t interrupt anyone. The handle is shaking and someone is knocking hard.

“What?!” Mel shouts. “Who the fuck?!” “Is Stevo in there?” Peck says. I mouth no no no to Mel. “Nope. Not here.” Pause. “Try the backyard.” “Looked out there,” Peck says. “ You sure he’s not in here?” “No! I dunno where he’s at,” Mel says and mouths to me, what’s with this guy? He turns back

to Lisa who is topless with Nikki and both of them are all over each other not paying attention to anything.

After Nikki plays with my dick, after rolling it between her fingers and palms, in a whisper Jaime tells me to follow her in the bathroom where she pulls out a bag of coke which we snort off the marble counter before she kisses my chest and stomach, and then she gives me head. She watches herself in the mirror and pulls my dick out of her mouth and licks the counter of any coke, then licks her index finger and rubs it thoroughly on the marble where the coke was and the surrounding areas, then rubs this finger against the gums above her teeth, and then she puts my dick in her mouth again. I down a beer and in the reflection see my dick going back and forth in this girl’s mouth. I’m looking at my face in the reflection, my eyes red and dark, and I feel I’m not going to come because I’m too fucked up and so I push her aside and pull up my pants and I leave, and in the room Mel is getting head from Lisa, and the Asian guy is fucking the Asian girl on the bed.

The living room is packed shoulder to shoulder now, and I see faces everywhere, and all that I hear is loud music and unrecognizable chatter.

“Peck’s looking for ya,” someone says. I barely hear them over the music and crowd. I look around and see everything swaying. Peck squeezes through the crowd and says something quickly which I don’t get. He says it a few times, repeating himself with excitement, until I tell him to slow down.

“I’ve been looking all around for you.” He exhales. “I’ve been here and there.” “Listen, I got some shit. You interested?” “Nope. Sorry. No bread.” He leans closer and I lean back and he says, “I got acid, man.” I’m trying to focus on one face, ignore the sour taste in my mouth, wipe my dry eyes, and

then I say, “Cool.” I swallow the acidic saliva in my throat and feel an edge. Everything is sharper. The music’s treble and bass are separated by variations in tones and frequencies, with contours and texture – the space between where I end and everything else begins becomes clear, and I’m aware of

what no one else is for this particular moment – somehow more recognizable and distinguishable from the rest of the moments before.

“I’m gonna check the backyard.” Peck grabs my hand and places a small bag in my palm. Three starbursts are in the bag. Two red. One blue.

“Halloween already?” “It’s acid. There is acid on it. I got a lot of it,” he whispers. “For me?” “Yeah, just take it. A present from me to you. Free.” “Cool.” I turn towards the kitchen. “Just call me up when you’re gonna take 'em,” he says.

The sky is clear and black and a white moon hangs above almost full. I’m talking with people I think I've met at another party, drinking from a red plastic cup someone handed to me just after Kate fell. Someone spilled beer on my shoes. Kate keeps apologizing about this and about being so drunk. She says I left her. I’m sorry, she keeps repeating. Please don’t leave again. Everyone is laughing. Kate is almost crying. People start to walk away. I pick her up and tell her I’m going to go. She falls to the ground and keeps apologizing. I prop her up against the side of the house, and she cries out to help her. Someone shouts that cops are outside. Everyone spills out of the house, through the side gates, over fences. Kate says it’s her fault and that she didn’t mean to ruin the party.

Sean and I run down the street where we see Drake. Around the corner behind some bushes we stop and crouch down and see people running in all directions, laughing and yelling. The sounds of bottles breaking. The sound of feet running on pavement.

“Goddam cops,” Sean says lighting a smoke. “Aren’t you also having a party?” I say. “Yeah,” he says. “Not a great turn out.” “Too bad,” I say. “I didn’t make flyers with lesbians on them.” “Those bi freshmen are freaks,” Drake says. “They were here a minute ago.” He stands and

looks around. “Get the fuck down,” Sean says. “We’ll chill here for a few until the cops are gone.” People are running and cops are shouting. I light a smoke that Drake just handed me. Cars

peel out down the street. Porch lights are turning on throughout the street. The loud speaker is saying not to drive drunk or you’ll be arrested and taken to jail. Cars rev there engines and stereo systems compete for performance. People are slowly coming out of their houses in robes and sweats, watching, looking confused and scared.

“You look wasted,” Drake says. “You cool?” “Who, me?” Sean says. “I have reasonzzz. Hah.” “Did you see Holly?” I say. “I heard she was gonna come.” “Who?” Drake says. “They’re leaving.” “I got acid.”

seventeen This was before. At Walden’s we were taking mushrooms. The refrigerator had orange juice and beer and baking soda in it. Nate kept complaining they couldn’t find the Charles Shaw in any of the cupboards. Mi casa es su casa, Walden once said. I didn’t see much of him that day. He sat curled up in a ball on the couch, staring off at a wall. He slowly got up and sat in front of his DVD shelf and flipped through a few films. Then he got up and disappeared upstairs. He came back down and walked to the fridge, looked inside, closed the door and stood in the middle of the kitchen.

“Where did I put the picture of my sister?” he said. “It was here somewhere.” “What picture?” said Natalie. “The fucking picture of my sister! It was right here. Who the fuck took the picture of my

sister?”

“No one took your picture. Have a seat. Relax.” Drake said. Anime was on the big screen. The sound was off. A skinny black kid with a detective’s hat and a trench coat was in the corner at the DJ stand, mixing beats that synced up with the moving images. This made me think of music videos Peck used to make on his digital camcorder.

Lacy had a pierced neck. She asked me what I was doing. I said, nothing, you? Lacy had on angel wings and was tripping hard on something. I could tell because she was sitting completely still but her hand was shaking from time to time and when it did she would grab it hard with the other hand until she sat on it and then she looked around as though she had done something great. Her mouth and chin were sweaty and wet. She crawled over Nate’s lap and came to my side of the couch and began licking my ear.

“Hey, Drake? Do you think Stevo's hot? Could you ever imagine him naked? His cock? Would you ever let him do you?” she said. “I want to watch.”

“Um, I dunno. He’s cute. I dunno.” Beat.

“Get the fuck out. I can’t trust any of you fucking tweakers. Get the fuck out,” Walden said and started pulling us off the couch and patting us down. At four in the morning it didn’t look dark out nor was there any light coming up from the horizon. The buildings and cars and streets and advertisements were all the same light color, an almost transparent blue. There were no shadows. Chemical Brothers came from the deck low and fast, and we drove from Walden’s on San Carlos until it turned into Stevens Creek.

“Want Stevo to spend the night?” “Uh, I dunno.” Pause. “Should he?” Lacy was spacing out the words with hesitation in which

she would breathe and stare out the window. “Stevo, you wanna spend the night? Lacey’s dad is in the other wing of the house. He never

knows anything.” Every word was clear and sharp and slow. My breathing was deep and I could feel air filling

my lungs, my chest widening and then slowly deflating, spilling out air like a wave, over and over. “You don’t chill as much anymore,” Drake said. “Sure, yeah,” I said. He looked at Lacy and grabbed her knee. “Whatever you want,” Lacy said quietly to him. A pause. “He could just watch.” “If you… you want this?” “We talked about it.” “I want what you want.” “You said it’s ok.” Watching lights pass by, trying to focus on something, the music, the sound of the car’s

engine, something specific, I felt only my breaths going in and out, and with it the car seats and the deck and dashboard and music, too, then even Drake and Lacy moved into me, became part of me, then out again, and then I tried to stop it all for one moment, make everything freeze.

“I want us to be happy,” she whispered. “Me too.”

Beat. “He'll spend the night. If you don’t… want to… we'll stop.” “I guess...” Nothing. “I…” “I love you.”

Nothing at all. “I love you,” her mouth moved.

Car dealerships with twinkling lights and signs and billboards and street signs and the street. Everything another disfigured shape separated by color and distance. Cars’ lights. Long lines of red and white moving by McDonalds and Jack in the Box. We pass a billboard of some new ad I don’t recognize. A guy and a girl smiling, his eyes on her, his face serious, and her head tilted up and away, smiling, and this billboard shrinks away until it disappears with the rest of the lights. The thoughts and memories are always there. She was lying in her seat, curled in a ball with her eyes closed, not moving. He asked her where his phone charger was. After a while without moving, she said she didn’t know. She got out of the car and

left the door open and walked up the driveway. The car drove off and Drake and I sat silent and the face of the guy and girl in the billboard kept coming back to me until Drake cleared his throat twice.

I leaned against the front door and looked for the smokes in my pocket but had none. The last things Drake said before he drove off were I can’t see straight and there is construction on Lawrence. eighteen She found him in the yellow pages after she found the bag of buds in my back pack.

“I don’t like that Nate kid,” she said. Much later.

“You don’t know him.” It was a twenty minute car ride to the shrink. How much does he charge were the words I

said. We drove up to a building complex in Blossom Hill and parked in an empty lot. “What do you think about?” he asks. “I think of revolution,” I say. “I am being serious.” “I am serious.”

Beat. “Why?” Because this is not it. There are things here that are not yet clear. More to uncover and see.

We’re not yet there and we’re falling away. Far away. I’m waiting in the lobby for him to talk to my mom. The receptionist is young and beautiful and dark. I don’t ask her where she is from, I don’t ask her what her name is, instead I ask her how she likes to get up every morning and come to a place with so much sickness.

“How do you like it?” she asks me. I laugh and then nod. She says she wants to be a social worker and this is good experience.

“Do you like it?” I repeat. She looks up from her magazine after a long moment, puts a finger on the page, and says this:

“It’s good if you want to get into social work.” I nod. It’s quiet. “You go to school?” I say. “Yeah. I go to school.” “Where?” “Where?” Her finger in place on the page. “San Jose State.” “I know people there.” She says nothing. I think about prescription drugs, depression, shock therapy, lobotomies, sex

with patients, sex with therapists, with animals. Pavlov’s dog. The receptionist reading her magazine and miserable.

“You know a kid named Dustin?” She looks up again and forces a smile. “Dustin?” “Dustin Robinson.” She has black hair. Her nails are long and dark colored. She turns pages slowly and exhales

with each page. There are magazines on the table to my left. A magazine with President Bush on the cover. He

has his eyes and mouth blacked out with pen. I flip a few pages in People and come across a black page with small white letters that read YOU ARE HERE. I tell him about the girl who was found in the bathroom stalls. He asks if this bothers me and I think about it for a second.

“It doesn’t matter,” I say. “What doesn’t matter?” “My being bothered. I couldn’t do anything. It happened. I did nothing to directly cause it or to

prevent it,” I say and look around the room.

“Why do these things happen?” “Everyone does what they want.” “What are you talking about?” I don’t respond right away. “I’m talking about people, how they have no control. How they

give up control.” I tell him about waking up with my heart pounding. I tell him about the crowds of people

running in the streets. He says I feel like I don’t have control and that my mind is manifesting this in my dreams. I think about the idea of feeling. And as I’m talking he is looking at me without moving at all. I talk and his eyes are on me like he is lifeless or sleeping or just not there. He flinches. He begins flattening out folds in his sweater as his eyes are on me. I say people don’t dream like this, about these things. His hands move down the front of his sweater, flattening fold after fold. He doesn’t say anything but from time to time he nods.

There is a seascape print on the wall. Waves are crashing in the foreground and in the background the water is calm.

“A colleague gave that too me.” “Maybe he was trying to say something.” “What do you mean, trying to say what?” No one says anything for a moment. No one says what they mean. He asks about the paper I wrote. I tell him I don’t know what he’s talking about. He’s

convinced there is a story. I tell him it was a joke taken too far. He says it must not be a funny joke if I’m in his office. I say that’s why it’s funny. The sky outside is pale blue.

Take advantage of California’s great weather, he tells me. When he lived in the mountains of Vermont, where the sun didn’t heat the ground like in California, he would think more, being stuck indoors during the cold seasons, there was more time to think. He made trouble in his mind and when he moved here it got better. He says, sometimes it’s as simple as that.

“You play basketball?” he says. “I do a lot of nothing.”

nineteen I remember this. My mom came home and said her friend just came back from traveling Africa with only a carry on bag. She bought everything on the spot. Clothes and shoes for the right situation, tooth brush and water bottles and backpacks, travel guides, pots and pans. Then she gave away everything to poor people on the streets before she left. My mom stood in the kitchen flipping through a magazine as she told me this. She stopped flipping pages and noticed a chipped tile in the newly replaced one-piece counter and said, how’s your school work?

Africa is still Africa. twenty To: Becca Subject: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: something new Hey Becca I tried to call you but you didn’t answer and I didn’t want to leave a message so I figured youd get this soon because youre always online. I’m glad I met you and think youre really cool but things are not going well with me. I can’t be with you now. I need to work some things out first. It’s just things aren’t right and continue like this because I don’t feel it’s there and don’t want to keep

trying. I’m sure it’s not a big deal because I’m probably a total asshole anyways so you won’t be missing much. I wish I could say things will go well with you and whoever you meet. Don’t reply to this because I’m changing my email (this one is charging me for membership now and I have been hearing good things about this google mail thing). Don’t call me because I won’t be able to talk. This is closure enough. Stevo twenty one Full & Rock Hard Erections Long lasting effects Fast delivery No prescriptions asked Nate: naked pics on her site Nate: its something like angela no love but just google it Me: really any crotch shots Nate: take a look smooth like a baby Me: can’t w/ parental unit round corner Me: when you gonna tap it Nate: doesn’t wanna meet yet Nate: she gave me her number might call tonight Me: nice Nate: easy to meet chicks online Me: like that Nate: the world is lonely and people just want to fuck Me: easy Nate: theres that and weed Nate: yea people r waitin for something Nate: anyway I just bought bottlerocket Nate: damn good flick Me: yeah Nate: that wes is a damn character Me: wes? Nate: wes anderson director Me: got it Me: Me: is now idle Nate: hey!? Nate: the fuck you doing? Nate: jerking off??? Me: haha gonna cum soon Nate: sick fuck Me: Me: Nate: done? Me: haha so good Nate: you know Layla and Zack are fucking Me: I think so Nate: its funny Nate: Her and I smoked weed and screwed all summer Me: now she got you and Zack to screw

Nate: bitch gave me herpes Nate: she still calls late night when drunk Me: haha Nate: is now idle Me: that really sucks Nate: don’t tell Zack. twenty two Holly is standing pigeon-toed near the payphones. She leans against the entrance gate, her red leather bag on her shoulder, her head tilted down. She is concentrating on something. Her full and thick hair is in her face. Her neck is thin and fragile. She doesn’t wear make up. Maybe she does but it is not noticeable. She is moving her fingers, running them along the sleeve of her denim jacket. Her sleeves are rolled up twice to reveal her thin and white veiny wrists. She has on a dark purple dress that ends between her ankle and knee. A two inch thick pattern of lines and swirls circles the bottom of her dress. Her shoes are black and look like tap dancing shoes, almost pointed and very narrow. The tops her of feet are exposed. The skin there is as pale as her face and neck and wrists. She looks my way and does nothing. I’m too far away.

A black BMW rolls into the parking circle and pulls up by the gate. Holly continues to touch her arm, now faster, moving her head slightly from side to side so her hair sways. Crowds are walking in a hurry. Feet move quickly, slapping the concrete. Engines rev and car doors open and close. Cars drive off. There is laughter and chatter. Illuminated white and grey clouds move across the sky. I look back down. Everything is grey and shapeless. My eyes adjust to the contours of all things physical and I see Kate and Drake walking from the hallway. Drake is looking out in the distance as he walks. His hands are in his pockets. Kate is holding on to his arm, saying something to him. Drake looks up and sees me and starts my way. Kate stops and says something to Drake who turns around and waves quickly and turns back towards me. Kate yells jerks and walks the other way.

Holly approaches the black tinted passenger window of the beamer. She leans down as the window opens. Her hands are on her knees grabbing clumps of her skirt. She says some words through the window and the door opens and she gets in, and drives by where Drake and I are now standing. My reflection is distorted in the tinted window as the car goes by.

Drake and I go to Tanner’s where we watch Family Guy on Tanner’s 56 inch flat screen Plasma. We smoke three bowls of what Nate calls BC purple koosh. I am holding my phone, looking at Holly’s number every few moments while Nate is talking to Tanner about how to sell quantity in weeks’ time.

“What’s going on?” Nate says. “Nothing.” I say. “Nothing is going on." I go to the side yard where I have a smoke and finally press call on my phone. Holly picks up

on the first ring. I don’t answer until she says hello twice. I hear people in the background making noise. There is music on and she’s yelling so that people in the background get quiet. She is panting.

“What’s up.” “What?” “What’s up.” “Oh. Not much.” A pause. “What’s with you?” “Whatcha up to?” I say. “Uh, I’m… I’m with… some friends.” Someone in the background asks who is calling and all the

sounds get muffled for a moment before Holly gets back on. “Who’s this?” “Stevo.” “Mel?” “No. Stevo.” “Stevo, who? Oh, yeah. Ste…vo. Haha,” she says. “I didn’t see you at Mel’s party,” I say. “Mel’s party?” “Yeah. Did you go?”

“I went to some other party.” “Shoulda--” “My party was very exciting and filled with interesting people,” she says. “Yeah.” “Stan…” The music gets louder. “Stevo,” I say. “What?” “I said--” “Hey, call me--” she says. “Wait, one thing…” “Hu? You’re gonna have to speak up. I can’t hear… why don’t ya call back,” she says.

twenty three

“Stop and check if it’s ok,” I say. We keep driving. The dog is lying in the street getting smaller in the distance. “It just fucking jumped out of nowhere.” “Can’t do anything now. It’s way back there,” Nate says. “Hit this.” Drake passes me the bowl. Ralph Lauren. Drake’s on his cell with Kelly about a party this weekend in Almaden. He keeps wiping his nose and sniffing at the air, hard.

“Too far. Let’s stay local,” Nate says. I’m holding a cigarette, watching people walking in and out. Drake is looking at a rack of

clothes. He grabs a shirt and puts it up to himself while looking at another shirt on the shelf before grabbing it and putting another one back, then he walks to the mirror. He tilts his head down and nods at his reflection, holding the shirt to his chest but being more concerned with his facial expression and the angle of the tilt of his head. His head turns quickly to another rack of clothes. He picks up a pair of jeans and reads the tag, feeling the material gently and repeatedly. A salesgirl asks him something and he replies so that it makes her laugh. She nods and walks away and Drake’s attention goes back to the jeans. He walks back and forth between aisles covering the same ground over and over, touching clothes and checking himself in the mirror until he grabs a sweater, this time with more purpose, and he puts it up to himself for a long moment. He holds it out ahead of himself then to the side then back again up to himself. He puts the jeans down and walks close to the mirror so his face is less than two feet away, and he stops and looks at himself, pulls his fingers through his hair, checks his profile and sticks out his tongue. The salesgirl says something to him. He says something again so that she takes a few steps towards him. She starts laughing. He stands in front of a display for some time just looking at it.

A guy with a shaved head and a short-haired girl walk by from down the mall. The guy has on sunglasses and is holding a plastic bag stuffed with clothes. The girl has on clear glasses that look like they’re from the 50’s. She looks and holds her gaze at me as she walks by and when she comes up close enough she bumps into me making me drop my cigarette.

“You dropped something,” I say and pick up the cigarette, holding it out for the guy to see as he turns around and does nothing but keeps walking, putting his arm around the girl. We walk to the upper level to Gap and Macy’s and Eddie Bauer and Polo and look at jackets, shirts, watches and wallets. As Nate picks up a black leather wallet he says he will meet up with the salesgirl from the other store. He laughs. Drake tries on a shirt. He is standing in the fitting room in his socks and white Calvin Klein briefs. I’m sitting on the seat in the corner rolling the cigarette between my fingers. He says he looks like Scarface. Say hello to my little friend. He grabs himself and pulls his cock out and puts his hands to his sides as he hawks up spit and swallows hard and stares at himself in the reflection. He puts three shirts on hold.

We go to the top floor parking lot and each smoke a cigarette. “I forgot this place is fucking huge,” Nate says.

“Have you seen all the fine asses walking around. I say goddam.” Drake says. “I’m pretty high. You?” I say. “I have more for later.” Nate says. “Is that the new girl? What’s her name, Holly?” Drake says. “She looks familiar,” Nate says. A brunette with the same hair as Holly’s' walks by and says to

us no smoking here and nods to the side. Drake responds with a hello as she walks by. Nate points out a no smoking sign on the concrete side railing. We eat Mongolian beef. Nate sees Danny in the distance and waves him down so Danny walks over with some little Asian girl.

“How’s life?” Nate says. “My brother’s in the hospital. He got stabbed by some Indian kids on Tantua,” Danny replies. “Are you serious?” Nate says. “Why?” I ask. “Some beef from before. It’s not really clear.” “Terrorist muthafuckers,” Drake says. “You gotta be ready for these things. I bought a little protection, myself.” Danny pulls out a

knife from a leather sleeve in his pocket. “Some guy will sell these to anyone. It’s a paring knife. Haha. Modern steel.” twenty four this is how we do it

twenty five I close pop ups. One girl writes about wanting to start by going to dinner and if things go well maybe do more. She writes her name as Anne. Anne likes guys to be straight up. She wants to be the lady and she wants her guy to be the man. She’s not into drama. She wants someone who knows what they want. She writes she likes big and tall black and Mexican guys. Anne is a short, dark haired white girl with D breasts.

This other one calls herself Destiny. Destiny sent me pictures where she’s wearing a bathing suite, has jet black straight hair and is sitting on an office chair in a well lit empty room with white walls. In another pic she is leaning forward, her breasts almost falling out of her low shirt. I wrote her a week ago and asked her where she goes to school and if she has a boyfriend. She wrote back this:

I hope you like them, cutie. She wants to meet a guy who can teach her things. She’s into electro synth music, but

specifically into The Cure, Morrissey, New Order, Pet Shop Boys, and guys who listen to the same. Skinny guys are her favorite. They should have long hair that falls in their face.

And I am 5’10. I want someone taller than me. Another pic. She is wearing tight jeans and a black jacket with patches all over it. The jacket

clearly has shoulder pads in it. She has on a black hat with a small white skull just off center. A cigarette is in one hand and a beer in the other. Another girl named Janette, 18, a brunette, has a tank top on, and you can tell she’s not wearing a bra. She’s into meeting new people and is up for anything fun. Me: hey there Janette: hi Me: youre cute, lets do it Janette: lol Me: why do you laugh Janette: ur funny whats ur name Me: Jack Janette: really? Me: no its jeff Jannette: ok Me: you got a boyfriend Janette: no. you. Me: no boyfriend

Janette: lol i mean a gf Me: no. how old r you Janette: 15, you Me: your profile says 18… Janette: yea but I’m 15, turning 16 after xmas Me: cool, you look older Janette: thanx, how old r u Me: 11 Janette: really? Me: 21 Janette: are you tall Me: 6 2, you Janette: 5 3. I like tall guys and sweet guys Me: good. I’m ur man. Janette: lol Me: whattya say then Janette: about? Me: meetin up Janette: lol, later Me: youre right lets take it slow Janette: yes lol Me: do you have more pics twenty six An empty wine bottle is on the dresser next to a few mugs and what looks like a jewelry box with flowers engraved on it. My mouth is dry. I don’t know how I got here. Kate looks dead next to me with her skinny legs up to her knees under the covers and her arm is hanging off the bed. She has no tan lines, no signs of aging. Her skin is dry and soft and is a light golden color. I’m putting on my pants when she wakes up. She doesn’t say a word and doesn’t move a muscle. Just watches me with a straight face, not blinking. I’m putting on my shirt and look at my cell. After a long and steady sigh she asks where I’m going. We’ve known of each other for a while. I don’t say anything. I'm putting on my shoes and I remember talking to Kate the night before.

“I need a cigarette,” I say. “In junior high we had core class together…” I’m looking at myself in the mirror on the wall, tying my shoes. My eyes are blood shot with

dark circles around them. My face is covered with stubble. “Will we meet?” She says. “Let’s talk.”

My shoes are tied and I continue sitting, looking at my shoes in the mirror. “Why’ve we never done this?” “Where do you live?” I say. She has a confused look on her face. “I live… here.” “I don’t know where my car is.”

The sound of cars goes by outside. Somewhere in the distance dogs are barking. I’m looking at the little hearts on her panties lying by the mirror. The hearts are scattered loosely the higher up you go, but closer to the crotch the space between the hearts is smaller until the hearts are all together to form a solid red. Looking around the room I see an ashtray filled with pieces of foil and burned up matches, a Reservoir Dogs poster and Clockwork Orange poster hang crooked on the walls, little string shirts are scattered on the floor, a few pairs of shoes, a bottle filled with cigarette butts, five red plastic cups near the closet, one is cracked and the other is on its side, pieces of crumpled paper, an orange pill bottle, a Macy’s receipt, a bottle of Johnnie Walker, grey carpet. The room smells sour. She’s saying something. I hear the words call me. She’s repeating herself or I’m replying this in my mind. On the receipt from Macys I write down my email address. It’s the best way to reach me, I say. Do you have a phone she asks, but I only look at her body lying on the covers in the same position as

before. The curve of her hip, as it dips to her waist, makes me sad. The blinds are closed but the light is beginning to creep in more and more.

“Do you have a cigarette?” I ask. She nods her head. “I admire you,” she says. She’s said this to

Paul, Nate, Zack too. I look at her body, and the steep curve of her tan hip seems exaggerated somehow, like a

caricature, and for some reason this sad image makes me want to leave sooner without any more pointless words. I’m dressed, my mouth is sticky without saliva, my tongue drags across my teeth, and I flush the toilet. In the reflection, the faucet running, I see an old and useless face. twenty seven Nate and I go to Mini Gourmet on Bascom where we meet Drake. Before this we were at the school lot with Jeff and Mel and others drinking beers. I sell Ritalin to Drake who says he knows someone who'll buy a pill for five. We order breakfast and down a few cups of coffee.

“I’m sick of this place,” I say. “You’re sloshed, man,” Nate says. “What you gonna do?” Drake says. “I dunno. Something’s gotta be different.” “It’s not that bad. Frisco up north and Santa Cruz south,” Nate says. “What difference does that make?” “Everywhere is the same,” Drake says. “Everywhere is not here.”

A pause. We drink our coffees. “The computer boom started here. Silicon Valley,” Nate says. “I give a shit about the computer boom?” I say.

A passing siren ends the conversation and cues us to drink more coffee. “I watched Pulp Fiction for the first time,” Drake says. “I’ve watched it hundreds of times,” Nate says. “Best film I’ve seen in a while. Definitely,” Drake says. “It’s a good film, sure.” “Not just a good film, it’s maybe the best,” Drake says. “It’s good,” Nate says. “Fuck face, ok, what’s your favorite?” “Shit head. There’re a lot of good films.” “No. A simple question--” “No. It’s not. There’s all kinds – actors, and directors can make a film.” “Pulp Fiction. Best film. A simple question,” Drake says. “You have no frame of reference.” I’m out of coffee and watching the waitress sit at the empty counter leaning on her arm. She’s

falling asleep and when her head’s about to fall she pulls herself up. She does this a few times. I roll my cup off the table. It hits the floor and doesn’t shatter. She looks up at me watching her.

“And you do?” Three Ritalins make things slow down and drag. I’m about to laugh as the waitress refills our

cups. The laugh finally comes out and when she asks what I’m laughing at I tell her I don’t know. She asks if we want anything else and it sounds like she could care less, not once looking at any of us, instead her face is pointed down at her pad.

“Wanna do acid?” I say lighting a smoke in the parking lot. “You got acid?” Drake says putting his hood on.

“Oh really?” Nate adds. “How did you get it?” Drake pauses. “Give Walden a call?” “Not Walden.” “How then?” “Don’t worry bout how. Worry bout when.” “Never done acid.” “I tried it once. I was ten,” Nate says and laughs. “Ok. It’s on,” I say. Drake goes to the bathroom. Nate and I are staring at the street, smoking

cigarettes. “Pulp Fiction is sick,” I say. “I know.” We stare into the street out the window.

Three girls walk inside and sit down two booths away from where our coffees are getting cold. We go back inside and look in the direction of the girls. One of them smiles. Two are brunettes and one’s hair is almost black. The girl with the black hair has a long skirt with a pattern design at the bottom. It reminds me of what Holly has. Drake sits back down, sniffling and swallowing, rubbing the space between his nose and mouth, and after we all talk about talking to the girls Drake gets up and walks over to them. Before he does this, he says these girls are either whores or sluts and that he will go check.

His hands are moving as he talks. The girls nod in response, and then they laugh at something Drake says. An ambulance siren passes outside. Drake sits down at their table and makes a gesture toward Nate and me before the girls look our way and wave. I nod my head to them. Nate doesn’t do anything. I finish my coffee. Nate is ready to have another cigarette. Drake sits back down in our booth, holding a napkin with the names Mandy and Olga written next to two numbers.

“What did you do?” Nate says. “Told you they’re sluts.” “Just like that,” I say. “Not in those words exactly, I got more game than that.” “It worked,” Nate says. We drink our coffees and Nate is looking at the napkin. “Serious. What did they say?” “Don’t worry. Anyways, Mandy likes you.” “What?” “Does Olga like me?” I say. “Nope. But she likes me.”

We throw cash on the table. “She’s probably got balls,” I say. “Are they sluts, then? Or whores?” Nate says. “Sluts. For sure.” “How do you figure that?” Nate lights a smoke just outside the door. “Whores wanna go out and have you buy things before they put out. Sluts just put out.” “The modern romantic,” Nate says. “I prefer realist.”

twenty eight Subject: (none) I think I’m writing you this because you’ll probably never get it but anyways. I don’t know if it’s what we were doing that night or maybe it wasn’t but we’ve known each other for some time and I felt this really strong connection when I was with you even the first times we went out in a group. But especially this last time it felt like that was what love was supposed to feel like or something but don’t worry I’m not saying I’m in love with you yet. The whole night was very passionate for me and I hope I wasn’t too pushy for you. Maybe it was just you. Peck told me later that day that you are with someone so I don’t expect anything out of you but from what I have heard and know you are really

cool and seem like one of those guys you don’t find too many of. Your girl is really lucky because I think you’re a great guy. I know this must sound weird because I don’t even really know you the way id like but that is the way I feel and I am pretty to the point with expressing my feelings. You really gave me hope of finding a guy out there that is good because I haven’t had much luck lately. You totally changed my outlook on relationships. So anyways I just wanted you to know you showed me something I didn’t think was possible and I am very grateful. Also I hope that anyone you have a relationship with realizes how special you are and how grateful they should be. Well I might sound like a complete idiot but oh well I don’t care. That is the way I feel. I’m not really a sappy kind of person but I guess there is a first time for everything. Be happy. Peace out. Kate twenty nine When you look at the patterns in a granite floor you begin to see shapes like faces and people.

“I’m in one class this semester. I can’t fucking wait to transfer to UCSB.” Smith says. Once I asked what do you want to do?

“Physics. It’s what explains all the universe,” he said. This was when he and I stayed up all night doing coke, talking about how the complexity of the universe’s inner workings was really not that complex. We had figured it out.

Smith jokes about taking heroin and laughs about it. “You know how to get heroin?” I say. My voice echoes off the tiles and marble. “Are you in the bathroom?” He says. Heroin isn’t as bad as everyone says. I repeat what he says but as a question. “Because someone does it once doesn’t mean they’re addicted for life.” I’m scratching my arms to ease the sudden itching. Eczema has discolored my arms above the

elbows. It is on my ribs and stomach now. I take off my shirt. I look out the window and see the sky is covered with black clouds that are moving quickly, uncovering the moon. My eyes go back to the black and grey flakes of color on the tiles below me. I follow one shape to the next and the longer I do this the more prominent any faces become. They grow and become detailed. I look away and back and the patterns are again only flakes of colors randomly scattered.

“I’m living with people from work,” Smith says. “They’re totally chill. Three girls. All hot.” There is noise in the background. He’s almost yelling. “When you coming to visit?”

I tell him I dunno. “Come with Nate, it’d be sick. We'll hit up party after party. The girls here put out fast.” Someone in the background tries to talk to him but he tells them to hold on. There is a pause

with nothing being said. “We’ll try some heroin.” He laughs about this. He says he’s only joking and that I should calm

down. I don’t say a thing. He mentions how his roommate is totally into heroin, and that they take hits sometimes and have sex. He says she’s fine and cool to talk to because she knows some things about physics and likes to talk about real shit.

“Seriously, there’s a safe way to do it. It’s really not that bad.” I ask Smith how his folks are. Smith says he hasn’t talked to his folks in a while. He doesn’t

remember when. He says he doesn’t have money and that he’s been looking for a job. He asks me if I can get him some money. I tell him I have nothing. He says it’s cool, that he’ll figure something out.

“I’ll take Greyhound there, with Nate,” I say. “It takes like six to ten hours to get here,” he says. “How’s that? To San Diego is ten hours.” “Yeah and San Diego is like four hours from SB.” “It'll be six hours then,” I say. “I made it in six and a half once.” I hear cars from outside slide through the water left from the rain. The music in the

background where Smith is at is getting louder when he tells me about the cool people he’s been meeting there. I ask how many girls he’s fucked and he says he doesn’t know, and that it’s so cool because everyone is so open, and that I should come visit for the weekend.

I see faces. Then they go away. I see random black and grey patterns in the granite. My eyes follow the lines and flakes until Roman’s face begins to appear. I follow where there might be further contours and slowly the image becomes more vivid and detailed. The ridge of the brow casts blackness on the eyes. The cheek bones are sharp along with a distinct jaw line on one side of his face. Half of the face is shrouded in shadow. The lines in the face are clear and deep. The face goes away when Smith says the band’s about to play.

He says I really want you to come and visit and then he coughs before he can say anything else and the phone cuts out. thirty The sun is a burning and fiery mass. It reflects off the hood of the car and makes me squint; everything in my sight goes white. The wheels are waxed and there’s a fake new car smell inside. For only two dollars extra. I’m listening to Neutral Milk. I drive on Stevens Creek, in and out of cars, changing lanes.

I come to a red light. To my right is a man with rolls on his face, picking his nose. To my left is a middle aged woman with red hair in a bun, wearing dark glasses that cover half her face. I stare at her for a while not realizing I’m doing this. She notices and looks my way. We look at each other for a moment longer than what seems normal. I look away. I can tell from the corner of my eye she’s still looking at me. People never look at each other. Usually you’re alone and no one notices anyone else.

The light is red and she’s looking straight ahead. She is cold and stiff. I turn to watch her, her profile is even and smooth. She looks back at me. This time I keep eye contact. Her hand reaches the corner of her sunglasses, lowering them, uncovering green eyes. The light is red. She mouths to me very clearly the word follow. The light turns green. Her car moves in front of mine. I do as she said. We drive past apartment buildings being built, through four way intersections where cars are not moving and people are sporadically placed on the sidewalks, entering and exiting shops, sitting on patios, people moving in one direction. Turn signals. Burning cigarettes. Red lights. Pumping gas. Buying sandwiches. Walking dogs. Crossing streets. Left turn and a right and left down streets I’ve never paid attention to, streets unwinding in the distance, until she parks in a driveway on a suburban street with new houses with red doors and SUVs and BMWs and Audis in all the driveways.

She has high heels, long legs in dark stockings, a skirt with a gray business suit, and a pencil holding her hair in place. We walk past a wet and freshly cut grassy lawn that smells strong. We enter through a red door.

“Do you want anything to drink, maybe some water?” she asks. I’m fine, I say. In the living room there is a black grand piano, a flat TV, leather sofa set with a chaise and

paintings of colored shapes and patterns hanging on the walls. A glass coffee table with a Newsweek with a Middle Eastern guy in a turban on the cover, and two cups. The TV is on and playing a commercial for toothpaste. She puts her jacket and shoes in a closet and walks into the kitchen and comes out drinking a glass of clear liquid, then says to me, come this way.

“My name’s Steven.” “Names are not important,” she says. I follow her down the hall. She is barefoot and is taller than me, has wide shoulders and wide

hips like I imagine a real woman to have. She opens a door to a bedroom. Everything is blue. There is a bed that takes up a third of the room, on it are grey covers. The ceiling is slanted. A blue tinted skylight is causing the blue hue on everything. She drinks the clear liquid and puts the glass on a coaster on the counter and then she takes off her clothes piece by piece, putting them on a leather ottoman. She takes off her watch and earrings and places them neatly near the glass.

I’ll watch you strip. This is what she says. I take off my clothes and walk to her. I touch her and she doesn’t move only shuts her eyes and lightly exhales. She guides my hands on her hips and butt and legs. She kisses me quickly.

“Do you have a girlfriend?” she says. I tell her I do.

She lays down on the bed with her feet still on the ground. She tells me to suck her cunt. I do until she grabs at my hair and begins to twitch and then pulls me away and guides me on the bed. She gets on top of me. Her eyes are shut and her hair is undone. She growls and bites her lips. When she opens her eyes for a moment and sees me staring at her she slaps me and tells me to look away.

“You piece of shit. You are nothing,” she says and slaps me again. She’s breathing harder and harder. The bed bangs against the wall as she bounces on me

harder and harder. My hips and legs cramp up and I try to get more comfortable but her weight doesn’t let me do this. She’s screaming and moaning with her eyes closed. I notice the wrinkles on her breasts. I look to the side and notice pictures on the dresser of a family. She is standing between a man who is much larger than her and a little girl who doesn’t resemble her at all. She tells me not to come. She slaps me and tells me to close my eyes. “You’re hurting me,” I say.

“You are shit and you will do as I say.” She slaps me again. “Got that?” My eyes are tightly shut. I keep trying to arrange my legs to be more comfortable but after a

while when I don’t feel my legs it doesn’t matter anymore. I come and she keeps riding me. My dick is getting softer and softer until she gets off me and goes to the bathroom for about seven minutes as I move my legs and feet around. She walks back and arranges papers on her dresser, pulls out folders from her file cabinet. She keeps saying how there is too much stress, paper work, phone calls, tension, and never enough time. She starts getting dressed. I try to move my legs, testing my weight on them. I’m not paying attention to what she is saying. I’m staring at the slanted ceiling and then at an impressionistic painting on the wall of men in business suits walking along a beach. There is clearly a strong wind hitting them because the guys are leaning into the wind, one is even holding his hat, and their clothes are caught flapping in only one direction which is directly behind them.

She tells me I should leave. I ask for water. She says she is expecting someone any moment. thirty one My cell goes off. It’s Joseph Hippman. He doesn’t say why he’s calling. He asks about school and if I have a girlfriend. He tells me about this girl he met at Costco, buying pancake mix in bulk. She is a stockbroker and she’s a few years older than him. After more small talk the pauses between our words get longer. His voice stutters and he asks if I know how to get ecstasy.

“It’s for a friend,” he says. Then a pause. “It’s for me and the new girlfriend. She is into trying new things.” “Ok.”

“Could you picture how this might appear to your mom, who is a good friend of mine?” he says. “You know your mom admires that I play guitar for the love of music and expression and all that, right?” he says.

“Don’t worry. I never mix family with business,” I say in a scratchy voice. He laughs. “Normally I’d go through Roman, if you didn’t know that already, but since he is not around….” I call Nate who calls his dealer and when he gets back to me he says he can’t score until the

end of the week because his guy’s been busy working overtime at Radio Shack. I call Drake and hang up after the third ring before his answering service goes on. Drake usually goes through Nate, too. Mel says he’s never scored anything and is no help to me but goes on about some girl he hooked up with who he kind of met online. When I ask if she has friends he says she has none. Maybe one. He’ll check. And as much as I don’t want to call Walden who I haven’t talked to since when he kicked us out, I call him. I tell him I’m in a hurry and want to stop by and pick up E.

“I don’t know how much I have. Let me check,” he says. He gives me a play by play description of his actions as he goes up the stairs to look in the bag in the drawer that usually has E, Dexedrine, GHB, shrooms. Before he gets to this drawer I hear him talk to some people about keys no one can find. A voice in the background mentions something about a batch of acid that just hit the market. Good cheap shit. Walden responds to this. I’m listening to a conversation. Walden doesn’t get back to me after a few minutes. So I hang up.

On my way downtown I call Violet and remember driving to school and smoking pot and the way we would get high and walk around downtown, buy slurpees and get brain freezes, smoke more pot, lay in bed naked, fucking and fucking.

“A pleasant surprise. How the hell you been?” she says, getting in my car when I pick her up on Fourth St. near her house.

She says how so much has been going on since we talked, how there is so much to talk about. I can feel there is nothing left between us. Radiohead comes through from the CD player.

“The world’s changing fast, you know, people fall out. Ya know what I mean?” sfhe says. I nod. Under my breath I say no kidding before an awkward silence. The music comes into

focus more and more. “I left ya a message some time ago. Did you get it? You never pick up my calls.” I say things have been hectic lately and that I’m in therapy and she says she stopped going to

hers when her mom lost her job and couldn’t pay for it. “It’s all right for you to call once in a while.” “I called you. Here we are. Sorry it’s not epic,” I say. She asks about the details in school and family and about Roman and my mental state and I

give her vague answers. Then she asks about summer and why I just stopped calling. “I was busy, working a lot. And I didn’t really chill much at all, ya know,” I say. “Yeah, I was workin' at the film festival here.” “I got school.” She stares at the passing trees. My eyes are on the road ahead. She turns

down the music. “How’s Peck?” “The same.” Rain comes down lightly as we're about to park around the corner from Walden’s. There is

never any parking so close to his place because of all the University students. Rarely is anyone so lucky.

“Listen. I don’t wanna be here long.” I say. She says fine. We walk through the rain up the steps to the door. “After this we can get coffee or something,” I say. Drum and bass hits hard. Kids dressed in colorful clothes bounce up and down with beats and

flashing lights. The DJ’s dreads are swinging back and forth as he points at me and I point back but have never met him and tell Violet that I’ve seen him around and talked to him a few times and that he owes me a favor for something. In the kitchen we bump into a guy who I met at Café Matisse and brought to Walden’s for the first time. His eyes roll around in his head. I talk to him about a show I didn’t see downtown. He keeps asking me how it was.

“Seen Walden?” I say. “Say wha… I dunno, man.” I ask a few people in the hallway waiting for the bathroom if they know where Walden is. “What’re ya talkin’ about?” “Have you seen him?” I say. “Seen who?” a girl with a pacifier around her neck says. “Walden. The guy who lives here.” “Tony lives here, doesn’t he?” She looks at the guy with a mohawk next to her. He shrugs and

puts a cigarette to his mouth. “Hold on. I’m gonna say hi to a friend,” Violet says and walks off and I go upstairs. “Hey ya, dude, what’s up?” says a guy with a yellow vest. “Remember that time we were wasted on shrooms talkin’ about the universe? That was one of

the best talks.” I say yeah. “Your friend from SB, man, he was crazy. All into physics and shit. To know things is to be

fucked, man. Either way you’re fucked.” “Hey, lookin' for Walden. Seen him?” I say and don’t wait for a response and just continue up

the stairs where there are people doing lines off a mirror laid out on the double king sized bed. The room has red lighting that is dim. Some guy has his shirt off, looks at me with disgust. I

look in the drawer where Walden usually has the bag of drugs. “Hey, whatcha doin' there?” a girl with tight braids and black holes for eyes says. “Walden wouldn’t want anyone diggin' through his shit like that, man. Been stolen before, you

know,” the shirtless guy says, gets off the bed and comes my way. “I gotta find it,” I say. I’m looking in the drawer for the bag. “Don’t tell me about Walden’s

shit. I know Walden.”f The guy grabs my arm and pulls me away from the drawer where there is no bag. Trying to

unlock his grip I try to push him away.

“You don’t just dig through others people shit, dude,” he says. His grip is tight and from up close I see his face is sweaty and slippery. He has drops of sweat on his head which roll down his neck and face when he moves. His eyes are solid black and I don’t see any white. He is not letting go. I hit him in the head. His grip comes undone.

“I’m looking for Walden,” I say as he shakes his head and swings at me. Another guy on the bed, wearing a beanie, starts to approach. I make my way downstairs pushing through people. The music is hitting harder. The DJ looks at me again and nods like things are going as expected. A crowd of people are bouncing and swaying with the music that’s mixed in with video game sounds and crashes.

“You lookin’ fer Walden, right?” The guy with the vest says. “Yeah, where’s he? I need him. Gotta see him.” “He left to pick up a friend or something. Should be back later. What’s up?” I pull out my cell and dial Walden’s number. “He doesn’t have his phone…” A phone flashes blue and red against white tiles on the kitchen

counter. “It’s in the kitchen.” “Goddam. Never mind.” The shirtless guy from upstairs is in the crowd looking left to right. I

crane my neck, scanning for Violet. She’s not near the bathroom. She’s not by the stairs. “Violet,” I yell. A few people look at me and then look away. No one says anything. I can’t see her. I look on the couch where a guy is sitting in another guy’s lap, both smoking cigarettes. On

the dance floor heads move up and down and a man in his middle age is shaking his hands and waist in some pattern with his eyes closed. Against the wall, near the DJ, a girl with short hair is kissing a shaggy looking guy. They look twelve. A faint light comes from under the bathroom door, and by the door a group of people are huddled and touching each other’s hands while kissing in one group kiss. Their tongues slapping and moving against each other’s faces. I bang my fist on the bathroom door a few times. Inside I see some guy with a nose ring and Violet, doing lines off the counter. I grab her arm and pull her out, notice the shirtless guy from upstairs looking at me from across the room. We get to the front door, run through the rain, and into the car and drive off. The rain is falling at an angle.

She asks me what my problem is and I don’t say anything. I turn up the volume. I really don’t understand you. She tells me I have pent up aggression. From the glove compartment in an Altoid box I grab three Ritalins and swallow them with my spit.

“My problem? You’re asking me about my problem? We hit a party for a few minutes and you start snorting shit right away…”

“He’s an old friend who gave me coke. That’s all. Chill.” I say nothing and grip the wheel and press harder on the accelerator. We speed through a red

light at an intersection. Lights come from the side and I can’t see. The tires lock up. I hear metal crumble and glass shatter and I’m thrown against the left window, my head flattening under the pressure…

“Don’t drive like this. Are you crazy? Stop. Please.” The rain is falling faster and the street lights make a glare on the wet windshield so that I

can’t see clearly. I say something but it’s muddled, doesn’t come out right. “Why did you call me?” she says. “I left a few messages and no reply. Figured you wrote me

off. Maybe it was too much pressure and you needed to be – Steven, please don’t drive like this.” I come to a red light and see a few people run across the street. Their arms are covering their

heads but the rain is getting them all over. They’re laughing as they’re getting soaking wet. “You call for company to score some shit?” She looks away, outside in the rain, and all this

reminds me of how it was before it ended. “This is why you’re my ex,” I say. “We were never together. We were friends.”

She said many things after we had sex. Never did she say anything about friends. She said, when I’m with you the madness and chaos and everything shitty doesn’t matter anymore.

We drove around, just like now, and we would be tripping on something, coming from Walden’s, from the mountains, from a parking lot. We would go to her place and not say a word, only get naked and have sex, listening to Depeche Mode. She liked to bury her feet under my legs and hold my hand and not say anything, smoking joints.

I keep driving. “What’re you thinking?” The music is loud. “You can’t shut people out.”

Mel, Drake, Peck and I walked to Violet’s after a night at Walden’s. We were on GHB, tugging at Violet’s shirt, tripping her as she could barely keep herself up. On the stairs, on the way up to her front door, he was grabbing her and touching her. She kept laughing and pushing back and falling on us. Mel grabbed her from behind so she couldn’t move and was helpless, laughing. He said it as a joke. He said, we'll all fuck you one by one. And she said, I want to see you try, you whimps.

In the living room we collapsed on the couch and stared at the TV. Violet disappeared in the other room. No one was saying anything. Violet came out wearing only panties, and stood in front of us and said, who wants to fuck me first, whimps. Mel laughed and got up. She asks me if I want to come in. Because it’s raining hard, she says. I say nothing and follow her in. I don’t look at her face. I get undressed and she does the same. She is crying. I get on top of her and go inside her. The rain sounds like rocks falling from the sky. thirty two

“I couldn’t get your goods. My hookup didn’t come through.” “Oh, that’s cool, man. Me and the lady'll think of something. I always got some kind of tricks

under my sleeve,” Joe says and laughs. “And say hi to your mom for me.”

thirty three me: hey there some girl: hey me: you go to Lincoln, right some girl: no me: ur name is Ashley some girl: no me: oh, sorry, wrong person some girl: do I know u me: I dunno, ur not Ashley and you don’t go to Lincoln me: … some girl: me: whats ur name some girl: lana me: nice to meet ya lana: me: do u have any pics lana: I don’t know you me: how can I tell if I know you lana: I gotta go me: wait lana: what me: what kinda icecream ya like

lana: me: hello… lana: I guess you keep wunderin me: smart, eh me: I like that lana: me: lets try this again me: hey there lana: me: … some girl: has signed off Faith is looking off in the distance, off screen. I imagine a person sitting, maybe watching her. The songs play at random from my MP3 list. thirty four I’m having trouble with my keys. The light is off and I can’t see the keyhole. I look at my hands and they are shaking or it might be my vision. I try again and do everything exactly as before, a motion which up until now has seemed so automatic and needless of thought. I take the screen off the garage window and slide the whole window up and over and get inside. The dryer is tumbling and giving off great heat as I walk by it. I think I hear a voice but figure it must be something in my mind. I walk over the unpolished wood planks and look in the fridge, grab milk, and drink the last of it. The light from the fridge makes it so I can see the outline of my dad sitting at the table in the dining room.

“I’m waiting for my shirt to dry,” he says. He is wearing a tank top and slacks. “I spilled coffee on it at work. I’m waiting for it to dry.”

“Where is mom?” “Maybe... I don’t know. I think she’s sleeping.” “I’m going to bed.”

“How’s that girl of yours? Beth.” “She wasn’t my girl,” I say. “She called.” There is only enough light from the moon to see his outline. “Becca.”

Beat. “Sit down,” he says. I sit down. The tumbling of his shirt in the dryer in the garage is like a

metronome. “Is everything good at school?” “It’s nothing.” “Your mom put you on pills 'cause it'll help.” “I dunno.” “Don’t say that. Even if you don’t know, don’t say you don’t know, you have to pretend you

know.” He says this and then is quiet for a moment. “You applying to colleges, right?” “Yes.” “If I had finished my MBA I could be higher up. Wouldn’t have to listen to that damn young

new guy – you'll get a better job.” He looks at me and leans forward. “You don’t want people telling you about your job, especially people younger than you – you need money.”

I agree with him and say yes, I know. “Without it things won’t go well – go to school – climb and become manager and you’ll have

money, son. You'll make your own hours, not be told about your job – your own hours.” I notice I’m scratching the tops of my hands. I stop. He speaks but it trails off and in this moment I forget if he works at a computer company or a consulting company. Outside the wind picks up. The leaves hit the window and brush against the house and porch.

“I’ll do good.” “I know… you will. You’re just off track. Your brother was off track, too. We can’t have both…”

I smell sweat and alcohol. The moon is reflecting in drops on his cheek and forehead. His face looks wet. This is the only thing that’s familiar. Slowly the walls and the table are coming into focus. My eyes adjust with the moonlight that’s coming closer, moving over the deck and the piles of leaves and the table where my hands were a second ago.

“Take the pills. It’s better for you, son.” “Okay. Yes. I will do that.”

thirty five A few days of October have passed. Days are shorter. Nights colder. Nate’s parents are at the restaurant working late so Drake and I come over. Nate puts in Ghost in the Shell after we smoke cigarettes on the patio. He says the film influenced The Matrix and that it even copied things directly out of The Matrix..

Nate once read a book by a scientist who did mescaline and wrote about the experience. It has something to do with there being more than that which we see. The doors will open once we start tripping, he says.

Drake is sitting on the counter looking at his reflection in the side of the metal refrigerator. Drake mentions getting cash from his parents and wanting to finally buy clothes one of these weekends. Nate says we should buy clothes on acid.

“Drink this.” Nate is holding a glass of orange juice. “The citric acid will amplify the LSD.” “Been watching Bill Nye the Science Guy?” Drake says. “I heard Bill Nye was a convict who agreed to do a kids’ science show as community service

and it turned into a real show,” I say. “Did ya know what he went to jail for?” “What?” “Selling acid to kids,” Drake says. “Is that right?” I say and drink the OJ. “That is.” “Are you high already?” I say. “I'm makin' this shit up.” “Who the hell is this Bill Nye the Science Guy?” Nate says. “Forget it.” I’m feeling the plastic bag in my pocket, Drake is banging his feet against the drawers and

Nate is finishing his orange juice. Drake says Pam’s been looking good lately since she has shorter hair and maybe bigger breasts. Nate says she looks like a boy now. I ask which one is Pam while fingering the bag with Starbursts in my pocket and finally pull it out.

“Taste the Rainbow,” Drake says. “Just like you,” Nate says. “What’s that mean?” Drake says. Nate looks at me then at Drake. “What?” Nate says. “What do you mean ‘what does that mean?’” “Was that a joke?” Drake says. “Is it?” His fists clenched. I start chewing a Starburst. “Whatever,” Drake says and drinks downs the Starburst with the orange juice and Nate does

the same. We watch the movie and the robots and humans and the future and the detailed drawings. A

phone rings. Everyone looks at their cell but it’s my phone going off and it’s Peck who’s calling. “Why does he gotta stop by? I hate him,” Nate says then gets up and locks the front door. “To say wussup,” I say.

Gun shot sounds move across the room and everything in the screen is detailed and in slow motion. “These speakers blow dope,” Drake says. “Blow dope? What’s that?” “Means they’re sick.” “Damn him,” Nate says from down the hall. “He can come over but he’s not comin' in.”

“I could care less,” Drake says. “Let him in. He won’t piss on the furniture or anything.”

Something in the corner of my eye catches my attention and when I look it’s the animal skull that’s been hanging on the wall and just now it seems bigger, like it’s attached to a body that is stuck inside the wall.

“I must be tripping,” I say. “Sure,” Drake says. “What?”

From down the hall Nate says, Damn it. Drake looks in a mirror on the wall and says his teeth are getting yellow from age. There is a knocking at the door.

“Guess who?” The door opens and a nervous voice speaks. “Dude, wha…what’s up? How ya feelin'? How’s it

going?” “Yeah, yeah. Come in already.” “Ah, so, what’re ya guys --?” “Nothing. Close the door.” Nate lies down on the couch and puts his hand behind his head. Peck is hesitant, looks around

the room, on the walls, and focuses on our faces until Drake says, what are you looking at? Peck sits on the floor facing us, looking at each of us intently, and then he turns towards the TV. Everyone is silent and starring at the flat screen. All the breathing becomes distinct and rhythmic with the movie. Peck sighs artificially and stretches out his arms and this sudden movement throws off how all the breathing, the cars outside, the dialogue and sound effects in the movie, all these things seemed to be matched up and rhythmic. Drake gets up and leaves the room. When he sits back down his face and some of his shirt are wet, and he is breathing heavily. After a long silence and while all our eyes are on the screen Peck says, what’ve ya guys been doing? Nate turns his head to Peck and nods at him and turns back to the screen.

The skull on the wall is about three feet across from horn to horn. Its jaws are separated and only a few of its teeth are in place. There are black holes where eyes were. The bone has small yellow stains and spots. The flat TV, the Picasso print, the glass vase with plastic flowers in it, flower pattern couch, textured walls, wooden coffee table with the picture book of celebrity close-ups on it, Peck’s greasy hair, and this skull with yellow spots and missing teeth are now pulsating slowly and steadily, moving slightly towards me and then away as if they have secretly taken on life, become living.

Drake gets up and leaves the room again and when he comes back he sits next to me and again his face is covered with water, this time more water, so that drops roll down his nose and cheeks onto his shoulders and chest. He is moving his knee back and forth into the side of my leg. His face is on the screen and no one has said anything for a long time. Peck is sighing and coughing. Now the sounds, the skull, and Peck’s sighs and coughs pale to the attention I’m giving Drake’s swaying leg. It’s harder than before. Back and forth, again and again, his leg is pressing and moving into mine. He has jeans on that are grey and faded and ripped in a few strategic places. My jeans are blue and straight and have one unintentional hole. I pretend not to notice his leg and how it’s swaying, now with more force, yet still subtly, so that when our legs connect he gives more push and gently pulls away to wait for my response. I stand up and blood rushes to my head. A wiry feeling comes over my feet and legs and back, and outside I hear a jet fly overhead. “You’re trippin,” Drake says looking at the screen.

Peck says something but it makes no sense. “Peck…what’re you doin'?” I say.

He seems confused and looks at everyone. “Shh.” “You guys dropped that stuff I gave you? I didn’t kn--” “Bullshit. You knew,” Nate says after not saying anything or even moving for what seemed to

be fifteen minutes. He is lying on the ground with his hands behind his head facing the screen. “Really?” Peck looks confused. He looks more awkward than confused. His chin is sunken in

and his nose sticks out, almost curves down to his chin. “I didn’t kn--” “Peck, it’s chill. We all took starbursts. We’re tripping balls. I don’t care you stopped by. Just

keep it chill,” Nate says. “Really though, what’s the problem?” Peck says. Nate makes a sound to drown out Peck yet

Nate is motionless like he’s paralyzed, only his mouth moves quickly with words spilling out. Peck mutters something under his breath.

Peck is watching Drake watch the screen, and Nate is staring off somewhere. I’m standing under the arch of the entrance to the living room, anxious. I walk into the kitchen and take deep breaths and feel like I might hyperventilate. So I drink water from the faucet. Water runs down my neck and slides on my face to my ear. I put my face into the stream of flowing water. I go in the

bathroom and stare at my wet and dripping face for a while as my breathing slows down to normal. I go back to the kitchen and stare out the window until the noise from the TV becomes sharp and deep and becomes the only sound I hear.

Are you here? Faith. My polo shirt feels tight so I try to stretch it out and hear a rip. I let it go and it returns to how

it was and it still feels too tight like it’s sticking to me, holding my skin and won’t let go. Drake and Peck look surprised to see me when they enter the kitchen. They laugh and because they laugh I laugh and everyone starts laughing. We can’t stop laughing until finally Drake gets serious like something is very wrong.

“My stomach has ants crawling inside. I think I’m digesting,” Drake says slowly. He nudges my arm.

“I’m feeling it,” I say. My voice is distant. “Really?” Drake says and puts his arm around me while saying something about TV screens for

the headrests in his car. “The Panasonic ones.” He says. His arm around me, getting tighter and he begins shaking me until I push him away.

“Ya guys are trippin' mad balls. I wish I had my camera,” Peck says. “You can’t see this,” Nate tells Peck. “You can’t capture this. We’re where you can’t film.” Peck’s eyes are bulging out like a bug. His hooked nose and round eyes make me laugh, and

then Drake laughs, looking at Peck very seriously, and Drake says, why are you here Peck, what are you doing here?

Peck stutters and doesn’t know what to say. I say, “Because he is afraid of trying his own acid.” “I need a drink. Do you have more orange juice?” It sounds like Drake says in between his

muddling. “I don’t know. It’s at the store. I’m gonna get it now.” Drake says this under his breath while rubbing his neck. I call out to him. He looks up but

though his large black eyes are looking at mine it looks like he is already somewhere else. He jerks away from our gaze and walks out the front door as a beam of light shoots onto the hardwood and he disappears into it.

“Where did he go?” “Maybe I should go with him?” Peck says. I’m staring at the sharp geometrical shape of light

on the ground. No one says anything. “I’m gonna go with him,” Peck says. “You guys just stay here.” “Whatever you say, Peck,” Nate says and chuckles, closing the door.

Nate has his face against the wall, staring down the length of it. His shirt is off, his body is skinny so that all his muscles are visible, his ribs becoming clear with his breathing, then disappearing again. He asks what I’m doing. I say I dunno what I’m doing and realize I’m holding a small stone elephant which I picked up off the shelf, and I have been staring at him for a few minutes. Ghost in the Shell is still on and making flashing noises and gunshots and futuristic car sounds.

“You should look at this.” Nate is staring at the wall. “You can almost grab the texture here. Try it,” he says we are seeing what’s always there but never revealed.

I don’t see anything. I don’t see things falling apart. I know where I am and that I am on acid and that my body is reacting to the acid making things seem distorted. I am aware of this and when I tell this to Nate he says you gotta chill the fuck out. He grabs at the air by the wall. He says you have to let it take you and just say fuck everything because if you don’t let go you’re not going to feel anything.

“You see it yet?” I turn my head back and forth for some time and then stop and go to the bathroom and stare at my face. I see wrinkles and lines in my face, my stubble is thick.

My polo shirt looks too tight and foolish and I pull on the front of it once until I hear a ripping sound then let it go.

The air is cool and the sky is covered by clouds like a sheet with no ends in the distance. I take off my shirt and take deep breaths to fill my lungs faster. I am tanner than Nate. He is white and pale and skinny. He is staring at trees that are swaying in the wind and are blurry. He is saying how in the movie Pi everything is explained by math and that everything has a unique pattern, that nothing is random. I tell him to flex his arms. He does and I do the same after him and I tell him I’m bigger than him and he flexes again, and in the reflection of the sliding glass window we are both flexing our arms and chests and backs for what seems like an afternoon.

“My parents are always at the restaurant,” he says. “I don’t even know where the restaurant is.” A pause. “I’m getting a GTI for my birthday.” He moves his hand across the patio table, just above the separations in the planks. “A GTI with tires and rims.”

“I’m fucked up. I can’t see anything.” I say this as I realize the things around me aren’t the same as before. “Everything looks the same.”

“It’s like it’s always been here. We’re seeing it full blast… there is just more meaning now.” “I don’t know what. Just something is off?” I say. “Everything is breathing. Everything has life. A significance of its own.” I get up and go in the living room, turn the stereo on to the first station that comes in and

then sit back down on the patio. I smoke a cigarette. Nate watches me smoke the cigarette. I’m concentrating on my hands following the grain of the wooden bench. My hands are twitching and blurry. Everything in front of my eyes is blurry. I finish the cigarette and go back inside and stand in front of the stereo, listening to people talking about an accident at the 280 and 101 intersection, how there is a massive car pile up. I turn off the stereo and stand in front of the hanging skull. Nate is sitting on the floor in front of the TV.

“The floor is melting. I’m sinking.” I look at where he is sitting and look back at the skull. Its teeth are chipped and cracked. The wall on which the skull is hanging is pulsating, swaying. I look at my phone. Holly’s number is on the screen and I press send and a second later press end. I do this again when Nate tells me I should feel the floor and how it’s moving like algae under water. I stare at the skull, waiting for it to move, for it to open its mouth wider and when nothing happens I press send again and this time let the phone ring three times. When I think she might be picking up I hang up and go to the bathroom. I sit on the cold toilet and listen to the fan spinning and echo against the tiles and try to focus on my hands, try to get them into focus but this is not working.

I take off my pants and underwear and socks and sit in the tub. The coldness of the tub shocks my body so my legs and chin shudder involuntarily. I close my eyes and think about Holly standing over me in her purple dress and her dark hair falling in her face. I masturbate but I can’t get hard and try again, thinking of touching Holly’s legs and ass. My legs continue to shudder. Nate yells from outside, what’re ya doing? I don’t reply. My cell is on my stomach, moving up and down with my breathing. The green glow from the screen reflects on my skin and looks like a bruise until the light slowly fades out and my skin returns to its usual pale hue.

“I’ve figured it out,” Nate yells. “I can’t move,” I say. “We’re in that space between the real and the potential.”

Beat. “Should I call her?” “Do you hear that?” he says. “I don’t even know how to start.” “I know, that’s exactly--” “I want to know what’s going on with her, what she thinks. I have no clue who she is,” I say. “What? Open the door. What are you doing?” he says. I press send and hang up. I move my

fingers around my dick and yank at it again, staring at Holly’s number. I hear a clinking sound at the door. The door handle is shaking. I get up and piss in the sink, put my socks and underwear and pants back on and wash my face, watch my eyelid twitch. The door opens.

“I’ve figured it all out,” Nate says. The front door slams open with a loud bang. Drake runs in, screaming.

“I can’t take this, I can’t fuckin’ take this.” Drake grabs my arm and says, “This damn kid, he’s looney.” Drake’s eyes are black and

surrounded by dark circles. His face is long and hanging. The outlines of his face and hair and shoulders are out of focus, like nothing is defined, and the closet behind him and the air and space around him are connected. Everything moves with everything else. Peck runs in and tells Drake to calm down. Drake takes a swing at Peck who is out of reach.

“Get him away from me.” Drake is burrowing into my arm. Drake runs to the living room, hitting the skull on the wall so that it falls and crashes to the ground, breaking a horn off and separating the bottom jaw from the skull. He takes off his shirt and shoes, and he hits a vase that shatters on the hardwood. He starts leaning down and hastily gathering the pieces until he retracts his hands and looks at them, starts sucking at them, and blood starts streaming down his hands until it gets all over his arms and chest and pants.

“What the fuck happened?” I say. “Why did you leave?” Nate says.

“Things were going alright in my car, then he started saying things about the Matrix and Ghosts and me being one of them and he kept calling me faggot. At the liquor store he was pickin' things up, throwing them at me, opening drinks and putting ‘em back, you don’t even know man, he’s like in and outta craziness. He jumped out the car and asked some guy for a cigarette. I had to run after him. On Stevens Creek, man! Stevens Creek!” Peck says, panting.

Drake is grabbing at Nate who pushes away. I grab Drake and hold him as he shakes and tries to get free. I get blood on my arms.

“Dude, what’re ya doing? Lemme go,” Drake says. “I can’t breathe.” I let go and he turns and looks at me and for a second I recognize him but in the next second his stare goes blank and he hits me in the face. The next swing goes for my head but the angle is bad and I try to grab him but he runs to the living room. His arms are swinging as he is running in circles. His hand hits a painting that falls and cracks.

“Fuckin’ fagot,” Drake yells and swings at my face. I tackle him and pull him on the patio, take him to the ground. I struggle to hold him down.

He screams, “Acid, the matrix, taste the rainbow!” Nate and Peck are standing in the sliding glass door watching me hold down Drake. Nate pulls out a cigarette and lights it. He is calm and saying something under his breath. Drake screams, “You fuckin’ faggots, you bitch, you are all them.” He screams as I’m trying to hold him down.

“I gotta get going,” Peck says looking at his cell. “Peck. You never said this shit could do this,” I yell. “This is your shit. You have to stay and do

something,” I say. “I didn’t try it,” he says biting his nails and holding his phone. “I said I had a whole mess of

it.” He looks at his cell. “I’m gonna split. My mom is calling.” Drake tries to throw me off his back but I sprawl around and regain control and keep him

down. There is blood on his hands. It’s getting all over my chest and arms. He screams, “Taste the rainbow, you fucking faggot, the Matrix, I can’t trust you.” He repeats

these things over and over. It’s like this, him screaming, me trying to keep him down, Nate and Peck just watching, for a while. Nate turns on some music and turns it up so that it is echoing in the backyard and against the trees. Peck smokes a few more cigarettes and keeps saying, “I can’t believe this shit.” Drake is screaming.

Behind the wooden fence separating Nate’s backyard from the neighbor’s, in the cracks between the planks, eyes are peering at us. From another part of the fence, another face is watching us from between the cracks.

“We’re filming a movie,” I say. “Everything is all right--” Drake is screaming louder. The matrix, taste the rainbow, suck my dick faggot. He keeps on

screaming, each time louder. One of the neighbors says, look, they’re shooting a commercial, and the other neighbor says, maybe it’s some promo for the last of those movies with that surfer guy in leather. Nate says he’ll call someone. I tell him to call anyone. He dials a number on his cell and says hello.

“Before you come home could you stop at the store and buy me some incense… and cereal? What’s for dinner?” Nate says into the phone.

“My mom’s on her way home. She should be here in half an hour or less,” he says. “I’m going to go,” Peck says, scratching his knuckles. “You can’t fucking leave. This is your shit,” I yell. “Did he take all the hits?” “No. I dunno. I’m trippin’, too.” “We all took just as much,” Nate says.

Drake screams and jerks around as I hold him down, lying on top of him, blood drying. “I don’t see any cameras, do you?” a voice says from over the fence. Eyes are peering through

the cracks. I yell to Nate and Peck to do something. Drake screams and almost throws me off his back. He

frees a hand and begins unbuckling his belt. He tries to take off his pants, and he is screaming suck it you bitch. Give me head, please. Peck says he needs to go and keeps looking at his cell. He says he’ll get a hold of some people and come back. I tell him to call the guy he got the acid from. He says he doesn’t have her number.

“Maybe we should call the paramedics,” Peck says. Nate says, “I’ve heard of things like this happening.” Drake is screaming louder and the neighbors are chattering. Somebody asks, Is everything

ok? I say, Yes everything is fine, thanks. Drake throws me off his back near the pool and he takes off

his pants and tells me to suck his dick. He grabs me and screams, you are one of them, now suck dick, fucking faggot. Tears are running down his face. There is blood smeared all over his body. My hands are bleeding. He is crying and his face looks desperate and confused. Nate and Peck are watching this and not moving, only smoking. Peck is looking at his phone and tapping his foot.

“Man, we need to take this guy to the hospital before he dies.” A pause. “What if the cops come?” He asks. Nate is looking at the sky. Nate says, “I called the Tech Guy.”

“This is a weird commercial,” says one of the neighbors behind the fence. A balding middle-aged guy I’ve never met, wearing khakis and a faded polo shirt with stripes and with a company logo – ask.com – on the front pocket is standing at the edge of the patio. His arms are crossed. For a few moments he watches me holding down the bloody naked Drake who is now screaming less, but still screaming, Suck my dick, matrix, taste the rainbow.

He says, “Got milk?” Peck looks confused. “What the fuck,” I say.

“Milk. Give the boy some milk.” Nate and Peck hold down Drake while I pour milk down Drakes throat. He nearly chokes and

spits most of it up. Fifteen minutes later Drake is no longer screaming. He is sitting up, without jerking around. He looks around like he doesn’t know where he is. We give him more milk. Moments pass and again more milk. Now Drake is sitting Indian style, taking deep breaths.

“I had to skip lunch for this?” Tech Guy looks in the fridge, pours himself a glass of orange juice, finishes it in a gulp and he leaves through the front door. Nate says Tech Guy was his first dealer, and that he works as tech support in San Jose.

“Why am I naked?” Drake asks. thirty six Bottles were everywhere. Brown bottles and green bottles and yellow bottles. When the sun began coming up it reflected light off the bottles onto the patio bench and kitchen and on the floor, and the light reflected onto all the bodies and furniture and walls and ceiling and everything was colorful. The folks left for Europe. Peck was smoking a cigarette and walking around, muttering to himself, carefully stepping on the small spots of floor between the sprawled bodies. The stereo was on so that you could feel the bass from the ground and on the hair of your arms. No one was moving. I hadn’t slept. I was on the couch and Violet was leaning on me. And leaning on her was Mel. They were passed out. Violet was talking in her sleep. I couldn’t make out what she was saying but she mentioned water and running.

The air was cool on my face. Peck and I smoked a bowl and talked about how many shots we took in a row and how many people stopped by. He was rubbing his face and scratching his teeth with his index finger. He said he didn’t know how much coke Roman and he had done. He said his teeth and cheeks were still numb. He laughed about this. He said it was the first time he did coke. And there was so much of it like a scene from Scarface or something he said. He lit a cigarette and took quick frequent drags. He repeated himself, saying there was so much coke. The music made it so it was hard to hear. Again he laughed but it was forced as if he didn’t know what to say.

In my room, on my bed was Drake and lying on him was a naked girl with purple streaks in her hair. A redhead in her underwear was lying on the hardwood floor by the bed.

“You up?” Drake said with one eye open. “Me? Kind of.” “Me too.” “You seen Roman?” I said. “He was taking shots with Mel.” “Wake me up when something’s going to happen,” he said. “What’s that noise?” the girl with streaks said and rolled over to the other side. She pulled the

blanket over her and rolled over again. The redhead on the floor suddenly leaned forward from sleep

and said oh fuck. She looked at me and then quickly at Drake and the girl on the bed and then around the room and finally at her underwear. Where the hell am I? Where are my clothes? She got up and grabbed a pile of clothes by her feet and put them on, making sure not to reveal any skin from under the blanket and then she said she had to go and left.

We stayed in the house for five days straight. There was nothing to eat except eggs and cereal and beer. The floor was sticking to my feet. The music sounded like screaming at times. My head throbbed. I went back outside where Peck was sitting, smoking a cigarette and rubbing his arms. It seemed like this exact scene played itself out everyday the same way. He asked me about the coke, if I had some more. I said I dunno. He said he wanted to go somewhere during the day, to get out of this place. He took a drag and after he exhaled he said he needed summer school credits because he didn’t think he would pass junior year. He didn’t know when he had to register for classes. He was staring at his cell for a while. His parents were looking for him and he said he didn’t talk to them for a few days. I asked him where Roman was and he said he didn’t know.

“Stevo. You hungry?” Peck said. “I’m not hungry and I haven’t eaten for a few days.” I nodded and lit a smoke.

The sun was coming up. It was going to reach 100 degrees, someone said. It was supposed to be the driest summer in over a decade, a newsman said on TV earlier that week. The night before Violet said she wanted to go to the beach during the day, and that it might be good to get out of the house and do something. She got up from the couch and stumbled to the bathroom and said she didn’t have a bathing suit. She put her face under the running water, her hair falling in the sink, getting wet, and she drank for a few minutes taking deep breaths in between gulps. We’ll go to New Brighton or why not the boardwalk she said. Her hair was dripping on the floor on the way back to the living room, and she fell back on the couch, curled up next to Mel and passed out.

“I want to go to the beach,” Peck said. The door was locked to the master bedroom and I finally picked it with a paper clip and inside

Roman was lying on the top of the sheets with his boots on and shirt off, and head phones on. An ashtray lay next to him filled with butts. The room smelled sour and was stuffy. There were two red towels hanging like drapes over the windows. Roman didn’t move. I came in and his eyes were open and staring straight at the covered window. Some light was getting through where the towels didn’t reach. A strip of white light. One of his hands was in his pants on his crotch and the other was leaning off the edge of the bed, lifeless.

“Let’s go to the beach,” I said. He didn’t move. I walked up to him on the bed. His mouth was slightly open and his lips were blue and his face was white like the sheets he was lying on. “You coming?”

His head slowly turned away from the window just enough so his eyes could see me from their corner. He looked at me like he didn’t hear what I said, like he was waiting for me to say something else. His red eyes completely open wide. He didn’t blink once.

“Why would I want to go to the beach?” he said. We need to get out of here and do something. “Peck is a brave kid,” he said. “He does whatever you say. He kept saying more and I gave

him more.” “He’s smoking now,” I said.

He kept looking at me. Didn’t say anything for a while. His head turned back to face the window. The stereo started screaming from down the hall. thirty seven

“So how’s school going?” he asks. School is distant.

“School’s ok,” I say. “That’s good. How are your parents?” He crosses his legs. I stare out the window. I tell him

about how at school someone started a fire in the senior lawn and everyone was evacuated for an hour.

“How is the medication working?” he asks.

“It helps me in my concentration,” I say. “It’s working fine.” “That’s good.”

Beat. “What?” “Steven?” “It’s ok.” He says he thinks I might be developing bipolar disorder, that sometimes I act like a

completely different person. I tell him how things are changing and that I am managing. “I’ll be somewhere else soon. No one will know me,” I say. He is looking down at his sweater.

The window is open and a jet flies by. Everything goes mute. I have a glass of water that he brought to calm me down after I started complaining how this

whole therapy thing is pointless. He crosses his legs the other way and adjusts his glasses, then checks his sweater. He asks me about Roman. I tell him Roman left because he had his own problems, that he needed something different than this.

“What is different than this?” “Everything else. Somewhere else,” I say. He asks how I talk to my parents, what are the things we say to each other. I ask what does

this have to do with anything. He asks me to give him specific examples. He tells me my experiences with Roman and my dad and mom, they will leave me with a false impression of people. That as I get older I will have problems with people, communicating with them. I tell him it’s jumping to conclusions to say that. I call him a Freudian. He thanks me. Then he repeats himself.

You are going to have problems. There is a pause.

“How do you come to these conclusions?” “These are the things I study. I’ve studied for a very long time. This is what I know. This is

what I do best.” thirty eight All the cars are parked in the center of the lot. The sleek Mitsubishi and the shines from an A4 and how it reflects the bright white from the street lamps and the Chevy Tahoe nearby preventing the wind from hitting too hard and how everyone is standing and smoking and their jeans are loose and skater shoes loose fitting unless you’re a girl and then the tighter the better and hooded sweatshirts sometimes up over the head and from under them the bills of creased baseball hats show and cast shadows on weed-smoking faces. This is Friday night. I’m sitting near the trees where there is shade, and I’m smoking buds from a pipe. It looks like it’s going to rain but that makes no difference. There has been talk about going to the beach already for a few weeks and I know we are going to go but I don’t know what we’ve been waiting for for this long, why we haven’t left already.

Layla, Mel, Sean, Nell, Brenton, Zack are standing and talking and smoking cigarettes by the cars. I take a hit from the pipe and sit on the curb. Jen is lighting a cigarette and scratching her knee through the hole in her jeans. We have cases of beer, handles of vodka, whiskey, and Vicodin, Ritalin, ecstasy, bags of mushrooms and bud.

“Isn’t this quite the spectacle?” Jen says looking at the cars and the heads congregating, and then Jen takes a hit and blows smoke at the sky.

“This is a waste of time. What’s even happening here? Let’s fuckin’ just go.” Nate says. “Do ya know where New Brighton’s at?” Jen says. “Been there a few times.” I pause. “It’d be better if I follow someone.” “It’s easy. Go to Santa Cruz. Other than that I don’t know.” Nate says. He bums a smoke from

Jen and looks off in the distance while there is talking. “Aren’t you deep in thought?” Jen says.

Beat. “Oh, me? I’m really high.” Nate says and laughs. “I smoked the biggest joint Tanner rolled and

now this pipe. I’m on a cloud.” “Way to go,” Jen says. A breeze picks up leaves and you can see Jen shudder for a moment.

She says whoa, fuck me. Laughing and shouting comes from near the cars, and I see Drake bent over and shaking and

laughing. “Last time I was in Santa Cruz some crack head girl followed me, Mel and Jack, and she was

telling us all about how in the 70s they used to grow poppy for heroin all over the hills, but the government took it all --”

“What are you saying?” “She said if they know you know about it you should fear everyone. Her friends disappeared

after mentioning it to her. Since then she’s been living on the beach,” Nate says. “Maybe we’ll see her tonight.”

“Did you make out with her?” Jen says. “Was she hot?” “She’s a schizo. A schizo with delusions. A bum,” he says. “So you tap it?” Jen says. “He tapped a schizo on the beach,” I say. “A real feat.” Violet calls my cell. I end the call before it rings twice. Nate passes the pipe and asks if Peck is

showing up tonight. I reply by saying Peck called and wanted to chill with friends in Frisco because they were cool cats. Nate says, cool cats? And then he chuckles and takes a hit.

“You didn’t pick up?” Jen says. I shake my head. “Maybe it’s the cisco girl calling?” Jen says. “Schizo,” Nate says. “At the beach?” “Are we ever gonna go or what?” The bowl is ass. I smoke two cigarettes because we haven’t left and the conversation is

dragging on about reality TV and actors and I’m sticking my finger in the hole on Jen’s knee. “Did you hear about the girl in the bathroom stall?” Jen says. “What happened?” Nate says. “She got jumped in the bathroom. Some wannabe scraps or something, I dunno. Phoenix kids,

maybe.” “Did you hear about the guy that stabbed a kid from Fremont five times with a cooking knife?”

Nate says. “It was at some Lynbrook party. Shit like this doesn’t happen here. Fucked up.” “Well, it’s here after all,” Jen says. The car engines are starting up and revving. Drake’s Tahoe is roaring against the mustang,

smoke comes from the exhaust and is picking up leaves and dust. Stereos compete for bass that is rumbling on my chest and the ground and the vibration is heard echoing off the apartments and houses down the street.

Jen and Nate get in the backseat of my car and Pam, who arrives late and parks her Geo in the street, sits shotgun. We’re driving in a long line of cars, towards the Santa Cruz Mountains on the 17 with the Pixies coming from the speakers.

In the rearview Nate and Jen are grabbing and kissing each other. They start rolling around, taking off their shirts. Jen is breathing heavily. Nate is sucking on Jen’s tits as her eyes are shut tight and she’s grabbing his hair and squirming. Pam laughs and looks at me like it’s the biggest riot and motions her closed fist back and forth to her mouth like she’s giving head. I laugh and she starts laughing harder. Nate leans to the front seat and turns up the Chili Peppers song that is now playing, slaps my shoulder, laughs and leans back to Jen who is lying on the backseat massaging her breasts.

Pam says she is tripping on ecstasy Nate got from a guy named Walden. Pam smiles and her white and straight teeth light up her face. She is swaying her body side to side to the beat, biting her upper lip and closing her eyes. She looks at me a few times with a stare and then leans in to me like she wants to grab and kiss me. I lean in but she puts a finger on my lips and shakes her head and says I’m trying to drive, buster. We come within a few feet of the car ahead, Layla’s VW. Layla is weaving in and out of cars and I’m doing the same following her so as not to lose her. Cars honk as we pass. I honk back.

Pam’s hand is on my seat under my leg, moving up and down with the music. Sucking noises are heard when the song is quiet. We stop at the first street light in Santa Cruz. Nate says to roll down the window and when I do so Jen leans out and spits, makes gagging sounds, and says I can’t stand

that shit. Pam bursts out laughing. Nate has a big smile and while Jen is coughing Nate says protein is good for you. That’s why women live longer than men.

Down the small street to the beach Nate mentions blankets in my trunk. I walk back with Pam who grabs my ass half way there. I pull her to me and try to kiss her. Her eyes are rolling back in her head so that only white is seen. She moves her head to the side and grabs my cock and says calm down big boy. Down the rocky steps Nate pulls out a Ziploc bag filled with white pills and waves it around.

“Where did you get this?” I ask. “Walden.” “When?” “Does it matter?” he says. “Jen and I just took ours.”

Pam is singing something, like I’ll stop the world I think. She’s holding my shoulders and bumping into my back on the way down to the beach.

“She’s trippin' good,” Nate says. “What did you say about me?” “That you are a nice piece of ass.” Pam replies, “Suck my dick, bitch.” To the right and to the left are cliffs that project out in the ocean and close off the beach. The

moon makes the cliffs visible, visible like the surface of the water is until it meets with the black sky in the distance. Bonfires are scattered along the sand where people are gathered. They’re drinking and smoking and laughing.

We approach the pit where Drake is lighting the fire and Tanner and Mel and Sean and everyone is opening bottles and pulling out chips and sausages. Pam and I lay out the blanket and light cigarettes and grab beers. Tanner keeps screaming we’re at the beach, gonna get wasted. Nate and Jen take a blanket away from the pit and walk close to the water where they sit with a bottle of Jack. Nate says don’t worry about us. I take a drag of the cigarette. Pam is sitting in front of the fire as it blazes five feet in the air. She stares at it. Beers are being opened, cigarettes are being lit, pipes are being packed.

“Who bought warm beer?” “Wanna match bowls?” “Maybe it got warm...” “Mel, open this with your teeth.” “…got sticky purple ganja…” “…it’s not that warm.” “Kate was in a huge car pile up on 280, did you hear?” “You wanna watch me bleed, that’s it.” “Have you seen that movie with the floating bag?” “Yeah, she needs reconstructive surgery.” “Where’s another blanket for...” “I saw a fat guy holding a sign with Bush is a fascist bigoted war criminal.” “The beer’ll warm ya up.” “People were all chanting and singing with him.” “…with this pipe.” “Ain’t that some twist of fate.” “I hate that damn film…” “Saw a bumper sticker that had question gender on it.”

Beat. “So you’ll bleed.” Pam hasn’t said anything for a while. She is grabbing my hand and massaging it under the

blanket. Look at the moon, Mel says. I look up and see how it takes up a large part of the sky like it’s going to crash in the beach. There are a few stars, more than in Cupertino on the clearest night, maybe more than I’ve ever seen at one time in my whole life. I see the big dipper and the little dipper and although it must be around midnight, the sky to the west glows purple. Drake pushes a beer into my shoulder and says a few things I don’t understand or can’t hear. I nod and say something to which he replies, Wha?

“This is chill, man.” “Yup. This is pretty chill,” I say and swig my beer. “This is the beginning of the end,” Brenton says and laughs and others laugh with him as we

drink beer and smoke.

“And this is your mom, Brenton.” Clay takes a bottle and puts half of it in his mouth. Laughs. “Don’t choke, Clay.” “Who wants this?” Matsuko holds a blunt in two fingers. “Lemme see this,” Drake says. “Just hit it.” “Hold on. I have to make sure it’s… proper.” After looking the joint over Drake hits it and

exhales so his face is clouded with smoke, and out of breath he says, “Yeah. It’s proper.” Then coughs.

“Aren’t you the pro at sucking down tokes?” Zack says and laughs. “What the fuck is that supposed to mean?” Drake says. “We all heard about you.” There is a pause. Drake looks confused. “Oh come on… ‘suck my

dick, you fuckin’ faggots,’ over and over. Dude, it’s funny.” Zack says. “What are you talking about?” Drake passes the blunt and pushes Zack so he falls. “Some

inside joke or something?” “It’s cool, man. You had a bad trip. That’s all.” “You should check your sources.” Drake sits down in his lawn chair and takes a swig of beer.

Layla who is sitting next to Drake moves over across from Drake. Pam is rubbing my leg slowly and with pressure while smoking a cigarette. Her eyes, normally

blue or green are black and wide open and when I look at her I’m not sure she can see me. “I’m tripping so hard,” she says into my ear. “I wanna trip, too.” “Yeah. Let’s trip together. You and me.” She says this through clenched teeth, squeezing my

leg tighter than before. “Hurry…I’ll be peaking soon.” “What’s with Pam, dude?” someone says. “What’s she on?” “On Stevo’s face soon.” “Who says I’m on anything?” Pam says. “Haven’t you been E-ing every weekend for a while?” Jane says. “Yeah and it’s sooo…” Pam lunges forward and says words that don’t come out right but no

one seems to notice. “Ok. Sure,” Zack says.

Nate and Jen are under the blanket rolling around. I hear her laughing and giggling. I’m walking to them humming a song I heard on the radio earlier in the day.

“Lemme get a hit, no, two.” “Are you serious? Now?” Nate says. Jen tries to look like nothing’s going on. Only her head is coming out from under the covers. “Pam and I are both gonna trip.” “Fine. You owe me.” “Sure, your life.” “Huh? Yeah.” “Are you feelin' it?” “Uh, it’s comin’.” I say something that makes Nate laugh. I grab two pills from Jen’s bag near her feet and

Nate’s jeans and boxers. I pop a pill in my mouth and drink it down with beer, lighting a cigarette. Brenton is drunk and swaying while he talks, sitting next to Pam with his arm around her. He has a beer in his hand and whispers something in Pam’s ear. Pam’s eyes are closed and her head is tilted back as she smiles at the sky. She is trying to lean away from him.

“What are you doing?” I say. He looks up, spilling his beer and looks confused. “What you mean?” “I was sitting there. Get up.” “It’s a free country.” “But it’s my seat.” “We’re all cool here, no need to be greedy.” Brenton puts his hand on Pam’s leg. Pam’s head is

tipping from one side to the other and her eyes open and roll in her head like she’s about to puke. I pour beer on Benton’s leg until he tries to kick me. He gets up and tries to push me but I

push his hands away. Everyone thinks we’re just fucking around and they make toasts and push each other around mockingly and laugh.

“Hey man. What the hell?” Brenton says. Laughs and cheers break out harder. I dodge Brenton as he lunges at me. I grab his shoulder and pull him to my side, then sit back down next to Pam.

“You bitch,” “You drunken poop.” “Good show,” someone says. Cheers and bottles clink and the fire pit crackles, sending flakes

up and out towards the beach and everything is black. I look out to the beach and can’t see where the water begins.

“When we graduate I’m gonna travel the west coast,” says Tanner. I take a swig of beer.

“You should come, we’re gettin' people together.” “Like the beatniks, eh? Like Buddhists.” “You into Buddhism, too? It is so great.” Layla says from behind me.

A pause. “It was kinda a joke.” Layla seems confused and says oh. “It’s about living true to yourself,” Matsuko says as he exhales a cloud. “Living to the fullest. You never know when you’re gone,” Zack says to me and takes the pipe

from Matsuko and hits it. “What is this…Philosophy 101 or something? It’s the weekend and I wanna get fucked up. Not

think,” Brenton says. “Fucking seriously,” says Drake. Pam whispers in my ear let’s go. I grab a few bottles and stuff them in my pockets. Pam takes

the blanket and we walk away from the fire down the beach. I walk behind her and her jeans are tight and low and reveal a fresh looking tattoo on her back between her hips.

“Let’s climb that mountain,” she yells and starts running. “It’s a cliff.” “Lets climb it.” “Hold on.” I light a smoke and finish a beer, throw it to my side in the darkness towards where

I hear the ocean. I no longer feel the Ritalin. I’m having trouble jogging on the sand and I almost fall. “You feeling it yet?” She yells from down the beach. I can only see the moon’s reflection

turning her into a highlighted silhouette. “Dunno.” I jog to her. My chest is heavy. She is maybe just over five feet, and I notice for the

first time how I am a giant compared to her. I put my arm around her neck. She starts jogging faster. “Didn’t you play basketball? I heard you were fast.” We get to the cliff’s base and sit on a nearby rock. I’m trying to have a conversation but she

keeps interrupting me with whatever comes to mind; if I’m tripping yet, do I feel my fingers, the sounds of the beach, everyone here.

“Touch me.” She says. I finish my smoke and throw it over her shoulder. “Hear me? Touch me. I want to be touched. I’m on E. Make me feel special.” I lean forward. I

grab her hands and rub them. They are small and the skin on them is loose and limp. Her wrists are even odder, like a skeleton’s, with almost no skin. She closes her eyes and starts exhaling. I’m getting hard.

“Tell me something,” she says. “Why didn’t we talk sooner.” “We had art together.” “I know. I wanted to--” “Touch me more.” I’m cupping and squeezing her bare breasts. Her eyes are shut, and she sighs and moans,

then grabs my head and pulls my face to hers. We are kissing and grabbing each other and pulling each other. Her nails are digging into my back. A few minutes pass like this. She pushes me away.

I lay the blanket out on the beach and lay down on my back. I’m stroking myself. Pam’s looking at the cliff and calls it a mountain again. My pulse is beating faster now. I think speed is laced in with the E. Pam says hers is all E and that she feels like getting naked and jumping in the water. We kiss and roll around on the blanket. I reach at her crotch. Her hips twist away. There’s a breeze off the water and it is cold all over for a moment and this is reminiscent of something but I don’t know what.

“You tripping yet?” she says through clenched teeth. “I want you tripping.” She is pinning me to the blanket, lying on top of me, her thighs tightly gripping my waist.

“I dunno.” I look at the sky. “Oh, fuck.” The cold breeze is picking up and the moon is now closer than it was before.

“It’s amazing. God, so fucking amazing.” Her eyes roll around in her skull. She’s twitching on top of me, shaking, leaning down and

licking my face and pulling at my jeans. She takes my pants off and pulls out my cock and rubs it against her panties and hips. I grab her hips and bring her closer to me. She pushes my hands away. A warm and numbing wave comes over my body and this in contrast to the cold air on my face makes it so that I can’t breathe and instead cough. Her cold hands are on my cock and she’s moving them up and down faster and faster. I tell her to slow down. She says shhh, and moves faster.

“Are we meant for each other?” she says. Her grip is hurting me. I tell her to stop. She jerks harder. “I have to know.”

“Slow the hell down.” I pull her hands away. She looks at me. Her eyes are completely black and glossy.

“Tell me you want me.” She says quickly. “What the fuck are you doing?” I say. She leans back. “I wanna see you come,” she says. Her hand is in her panties playing with herself. It looks like she is underwater. Her hair begins

to move and float as do her clothes. The edges of her outline begin to sway side to side. She wants to watch me come. She wants to watch me jerk off and come. I begin to get up and she puts a hand on me and nods her head side to side. I lay back down. I begin to jerk myself and the faster I go the faster her hand moves in her panties, the more she moans, the more she shakes. Under her breath she says something, the words aren’t clear, her mouth twitching and her tongue licking her lips, saliva now on the edges of her mouth.

“Lemme touch you,” I say. “Keep doing that.” She opens her eyes and watches me jerking my cock. “Come with me,” she

says. My teeth are grinding and my arm is tired from moving so fast. Pam’s moaning and shaking

and says she’s almost there. She says oh god, oh god, oh yes, and she comes and I come and we’re both panting.

The tide is moving closer to us and the sky is dark. The cold wind off the water moves across the beach faster. The moon is the biggest thing I see.

We lay on the blanket. Maybe we slept. A light shines on us. This strikes me as meaningful at first. From the dirt road up ahead a ranger is approaching with the spot light on us.

“Beach closes at two. No more visitors,” a voice says from the loud speaker. I continue lying in one spot, Pam next to me. The ranger has stopped and the spot light is on my face, blinding me. The loud speaker repeats itself. Go home or else. I wave and pull my pants on, stand up with the spot light getting closer. The loud speaker asks us if we are drinking and I nod side to side. He drives up closer so that I almost see a person in the driver. Get out of here now. The ranger drives off down the beach. We grab the blanket and jog to the fire pit where the ranger has stopped. People are running to the cliff, towards the street. The loud speaker is yelling for everyone to stop. The spotlight is targeting head after head. I see bottles around the bonfire, cases of beers, handles of vodka, bags and lawn chairs – one big trash pit. The ranger gets out of the car and runs after anyone he can. He grabs someone. Someone is struggling to get free but the ranger hits him in the head a few times.

“Let him go,” a voice screams. Zack runs up to the ranger and throws a punch that connects with the ranger's ear. The ranger staggers a little to the side but doesn’t let go of the kid. The closer I get the more it looks like Matsuko who is being held by the ranger. Girls are screaming to run. Pam was running next to me but I don’t know where she is now. I’m near the fire pit that’s blazing now higher and more wildly into the darkness; the wind causes the flames to flair and whip around from side to side. Matsuko is stuck in a half nelson, trying to get away from the ranger, less than fifty yards from me. The fire crackles and a wind sends heat in my direction. Brenton runs up and kicks the ranger’s back causing the ranger to lose grip of Matsuko. The ranger pulls out his baton and swings it at Brenton who falls on the ground. Drake runs at the ranger and punches his face over and over until the ranger falls on his hands and knees. Zack is circling and waiting to get a few hits in. He yells, get him, fuck him up, do it. I run up and kick the ranger in the face. I back away and see the ranger’s head is hanging, blood dripping on the sand. Brenton and Zack are hitting and kicking his head and stomach. The ranger tries to get up but keeps falling down. Pam and Jen are screaming from up the cliff for us to hurry up.

More rangers are coming, a voice screams. Matsuko has grabbed a piece of drift wood and is walking up from the shore. Kick that muthafucker once more, Matsuko says. My foot connects with the

ranger’s face and his head flaps back like a rag. He staggers down. There is screaming. My fists are clenched. I’m breathing deep through my mouth. A siren sounds out and a loud speaker is saying something. Jeff yells we gotta get the fuck out. Him and Drake start towards the cliff. Matsuko keeps hitting the ranger in the head and face with the wood. The ranger is trying to cover his face but his arms are getting limp. Brenton pushes Matsuko away and then grabs the ranger and drags his motionless body closer to the fire. Give me a hand! I’m standing motionless. My face is hot and I’m shaking. The ranger’s face is mushy and black and red and sandy. I can’t see his nose or cheeks. I see raw and bleeding meat. Matsuko kicks the ranger in the face once more and runs towards the cliff. We gotta fuckin go, Nate yells from the cliff side. The sirens are louder now, approaching from down the beech. Red and blue lights are spinning towards us. The loud speaker is saying to stop at once. Fuck those guys, I hear. I run up the steps on the cliff. Zack and Layla are up ahead, looking back. Zack yells, Brenton, forget him, let’s go. I don’t bother to turn around.

The street is bright and blurry. Everyone is running. Cars are driving away. Drake is dancing in the street without his shirt. Jen is yelling for him to hurry. Nate is smoking a cigarette by my car. Layla keeps running around to everyone, saying we need to get Brenton, that Brenton is in trouble. Something about more rangers. No one listens. There are cheers and applause and screams. The street lamps are glaring and causing rings of light to appear. Nothing is in focus. And I’m walking towards my car, the ground keeps swerving and I’m trying to concentrate on a straight line. And the greatest discomfort I feel is with each step forward; and I look down and notice I’m barefoot and that my right foot is cut up and bloody, and I don’t know where my shoes are. thirty nine I swallow two Ritalins and see dark circles under my eyes in the reflection. Foam is forming and spilling from my mouth, splashing in the sink and getting on my jeans. The TV says the winds have pulled trees from the ground and flipped over cars, and roofs of houses have been torn off. They advise people to stay indoors if they can. There is too much danger outside in these harsh conditions, they say, and then a commercial comes on about ten dollar oil changes at Jiffy Lube. The branches of the tree outside the bathroom are swinging and whipping at the window and house so loud that my mom screams.

In the reflection, my mom passes with a coffee mug in hand and a long coat on. She says this is the worst time to be remodeling and is complaining about the cold, about how the heater should work soon but the workers keep rescheduling because of the weather. Where is the remote? she yells. I can’t remember where I put the damn remote. The foam keeps collecting and spilling out of my mouth. I open my mouth wide and spit it all out so it splatters on the mirror and the sides of the sink and onto my stomach and in the foamy spit there are swirls of red and pink.

Nate is smoking a joint while fitting his New York hat, looking in the full length mirror on the wall. He watches himself take a joint out of the drawer in his desk, light it first as he slowly puts his lips to it and begins to inhale so that the dry paper begins to crack and burn, the whole time closely looking at himself in the reflection, up and down. I take the joint and sit down on his chair and watch him watch himself. He’s got on tight, faded, dark blue jeans and a slim black shirt and an army jacket over his shirt. He folds his pants over his shoes, the black Cons. From down the hall the hum of the refrigerator becomes louder. He motions for a cigarette. I light one for him and hand it to him. We drive to Jim Morrison’s voice.

“Look at this ghetto truck. These Mexicans are so funny,” he says. “F-350. Powerful.”

Beat. “My beanie flew off.” I take a drag. “It kept going up into the sky. Until it was gone.” “I’ve had this cap already for over two years,” he says. We drive up to the Lynbrook bus circle

where cars are lined up bumper to bumper, waiting to drive forward. People are holding their hoods and hats, tilting down and rushing to get under the covered halls, to class. The parking lot is filled with cars, there is an ambulance parked on the lawn further towards the school. The wind is blowing so

that people are grabbing onto each other. Time goes by slowly and we are sitting in the car, smoking cigarettes. The cars clear away and everyone is gone and it seems like we’re the only ones anywhere so we drive away.

In the parking lot of Mini Gourmet, in competition with the wind a homeless guy asks if we can spare any change. We pass him and go inside and sit in a familiar booth, and we don’t say anything.

Nate is grabbing the salt and sugar and Splenda packets, opening them and laying them out on the table into a pile.

“Brenton was caught by the rangers,” he says. I don’t say anything. “Might be serious. Attempted murder.”

A pause. I put my cell on the table. Nate does the same. His cell has a blue blinking light. Mine does not

blink. “Brenton was drunk. Probably woke up, didn’t know what the hell happened,” I say. “He tried to fucking burn the guy alive,” Nate says. Pause. “Where is the waitress when you

want to order?” We order fried egg breakfasts with toast and hash browns, drink two cups of coffee, and then

our food comes. We eat and I’m staring out the window. The weather forecast said to be extra cautious on the roads. I see cars driving by slowly. Gusts of sudden wind shake the cars just enough that their wheels are still on the ground. A small car drives by and takes a left turn from Bascom onto Moorpark. The wind starts up and as the car is turning it begins sliding towards the window. The driver is frantic, trying to steer away. The car gets close to the window until it slows down and stops just before the sidewalk, a few yards away from the window. The guy looks around and then drives off. Nate is looking down at the pile of Splenda powder. More people come in. Foot steps, some heavy and hard, swinging and squeaking doors, ringing bells, the sound of food frying, coffee pouring, the smell of cooking grease. Ordering. Talking. I hear people talking. It’s a freak storm someone says. It’s like some religious prophecy another says. It’s global warming.

“We’re not like most people.” Nate says. He scratches his neck. “Explain.” “We think differently.” He looks around, scans the tables and everyone a few times. “Most

people are all the same. Not us.” I say nothing. Out the window there is morning traffic building up at a red light as a car spins

out and just misses an oncoming pickup. “Yeah. We’re above this. I mean the things we do. The people we know. It’s like this is not

what we are meant for.” “I need to get outta here,” I say. “You know what? That’s what’s good. As much as we do all these things we are always

unattached. This gives us an advantage. A distance. You know?” I finish my coffee and the waitress pours another cup that I start drinking right away. In the

kitchen a plate breaks and someone says damn it with a Mexican accent. “I guess you can look at it like that. Everything is the same here. Maybe in another city it’d be

better. Maybe just something different. I dunno.” Three kids sitting at another booth are looking at Nate and me. Nate’s cell rings and after

looking at the number for five rings he finally picks up. Someone wants to buy a twenty sack. I drink my coffee and see the kid staring at me. One kid gives me a small nod. He has on a backwards hat and a hooded jacket. Nate gets another call and it’s Jen. He tells her he wants to see her soon and they should sneak out late in the night and be bad together. The kid with the hat walks over to us. He walks with a limp or a strut, I can never tell which.

“Ya got any buds?” He nods when he says this. A pause. “You know. Some weed.” He motions a joint to his mouth.

“No. But you want heroin?” I say. “Naw, man. I keep it natural. No chemicals.” “Top grade. All natural. Heroin is natural kid. And pure as it comes.” “I need weed. Got weed? Ya know--” “I heard you. No, we don’t. Get lost.” “A twamp or what?” Nate says. “Hell yeah. A twamp. Word.” “Go to the bathroom,” Nate says. “Sick. Aight bro.” The kid limps away. A moment later Nate gets up and follows him.

The other kids at the booth have smooth faces, beanies on their heads, and baggy jeans. They’re not talking, only sitting and looking my way, and then when they see me looking at them they look away. The waitress pours me coffee. I say it’s cold. She says fine and stops pouring, is about to walk away. Don’t stop I say. She shakes the pot round, mixing the coffee, then pours it again.

“An easy twenty. I wasn’t even advertising,” Nate says back at the booth. Beat.

“I know the rims I’m gonna get for my Passat.” “I thought it was a GTI?” I say. “Now it’s a Passat. I got an A in math and once my dad said if that happened he would buy me

something nice. Passat’s nicer than GTI. I’ll definitely drop it a few inches. Maybe an inch and a half. Get some deep dish rims, some low profile tires.” We get in the car quickly. The wind starts up and almost pushes Nate over. Nate gets back out and gives the bum the box of left over toast and hash browns. I ask him what that was about. He says some people need help. Anyways, if I’d give the bum a dollar he’d end up buying crack he says. I see cops talking to two guys I think I’ve seen on campus. The quad is empty except one kid running through the wind with his head down. I see Pam walking in the hallway. She looks at me. I nod and she doesn’t recognize me.

“What’s up?” I say. “Hi. I’m really busy. Can’t talk.” “Where you going?” “See Mr Emerson.” She keeps walking. “Where’d ya go after the beach?” She looks over her shoulder and says, “What? Have we talked?” “New Brighton. I drove there,” I say. “I was with Jen and some friends.” “I know. I was there.” “Too bad we didn’t talk,” she says from down the hall, walking faster. “I’ll see you around.

Bye.” She turns a corner. The halls are empty and I’m holding an unlit cigarette. The wind is pressing me against the lockers. forty Subject: Re: cumm suking mature whoresw ant your man seed I’m chatting with a Filipino girl who says she’s a sophomore at Willow Glen. Renee is what she calls herself. I go through the usual small talk before she sends a picture of herself. And in the picture she is fully dressed. I ask for more. All five pics she sends are of her fully clothed, like on a normal day. In one pic she has on a tight shirt that shows the shape of her breasts. She’s a Christian girl. In her profile it says so.

Joe Hippman knocks on my door after coming in. He grabs my shoulders and says how the hell are you man? His eyes are large and black and his cheeks are pressed back on his face so his teeth are showing.

“Look who surprisingly stopped by,” my mom says from the hall. “I want you to meet my girlfriend,” Joe says. A woman with long legs and blond hair walks in

and hugs Joe’s back then looks at me and smiles. Her jeans are tight and show her round hips and ass and muscular legs. She has wrinkles around her eyes and on her neck. She has straight teeth. Her long and winkled fingers extend to me.

“I’ve heard much about you, Steven,” she says. Her eyes are round and her pupils black, like Joe’s.

They’re standing in my room and examining my music collection and posters and movies and finally after a long silence Joe asks when I’m graduating. I tell him soon. They leave my room and go

to the living room and I see Renee the Filipino girl has signed off. I chat with some other girl who is boring and chats about Bush and politics and how she’s traveled so much and knows people in Paris and Milan and London. I sign off when she asks what I think about the current international image of America overseas. I watch the clip of Faith getting fucked and for some reason I don’t get hard and instead get sad when I see her looking off screen like she does so I get up and leave the room.

One of Joe’s hands is on his girlfriend’s knee, the other on my mom’s shoulder. Joe is saying something but I hear the theme of Friends coming from the TV. I go to the kitchen and get myself a glass of milk and stand in the kitchen.

“…it was so boring that we just got up and left. I forgot what it’s called. Things blowing up and blah blah,” Joe said. His girl and my mom laugh. “The material of the seat was more entertaining, ya know that fabric, with texture. I rubbed it so much, I rubbed it smooth.” They laugh again.

I walk to the living room and lean against the wall and listen. They hardly notice I’m there. “Oh you funny, funny, man,” Joe’s girl says. She leans her head into his shoulder as he pets

her hair. He’s speaking and the whole time petting her hair. “I gotta use the potty,” Joe says in a kid’s voice. His girl and my mom laugh. There is a long

silence and my mom sighs and is looking at the wrinkles in her hands. Joe’s girl is staring at the crown moldings of the ceiling. Then she looks at me.

“So how the hell are you? I mean, how is your life? Are you happy?” She says this while looking at me but I know my mom thinks she is getting asked because she gets surprised and sits back while the Friends theme replays in the background.

“Everything’s fine, well, I guess,” she says and looks at me. “Well, there are always problems. Just phases, you know?”

“I know what you mean…” “It’s been hard dealing with Roman disappearing…” She doesn’t finish. Joe’s girlfriend nods up

and down. “You know when you’re just tired of everything and you want to disappear but the thing is you only think this and you could never actually do it, well maybe that is what Roman did – he just got up and left.” Joe’s girlfriend is closing her eyes and rocking side to side.

“Right now I wish you could feel what I’m feeling.” My mom doesn’t respond, looks uninterested. The sound of the toilet flushing is heard. The

door opens and footsteps follow. “Steven and I are going to Paris.” “That’s wonderful,” Joe’s girlfriend says and quickly mentions some last visit there. My mom

continues to speak so they are both talking at the same time. Both their voices trail off. I’m picking at the hairs growing out of my knuckles. Joe’s girl looks at me and smiles so that I see all her teeth. Her eyes are large and black.

“Joe is such a sweetheart. You know what he did on the way from the movies? I don’t think any guy ever did such a sweet thing like this. While I was driving he rubbed lotion on my hands.”

“You two seem so in love. I remember Stevo’s father and I used to be like that,” my mom says.

I’m standing and watching their mouths and hands move, and the TV’s light glows on their faces and so I go to my room where Joe is looking through my CDs.

“Jesus, did I get some crazy shit or what,” he says, closing my door. “I called a friend of a friend and ended up getting some stuff. You know, the stuff I asked for. We dropped two pills each before the movie, and oh my god, I swear, I don’t know what movie we even went to go see. Everything was irrelevant and… and I dunno…” His eyes roll around in his head. “You don’t think your mom knows, does she?”

“Don’t worry.” “You have too many burned CDs and not enough albums.” He picks up a book from my shelf

and starts flipping through it quickly while still looking at other books on the shelf. “Where should the lady and I go after this? I have no clue where to take her. Man, I am so high right now.” He puts down the book and sits on the bed. “Are you happy? I mean with life? People don’t just relax enough and let loose. I mean, Jesus, what about having some fun just for fun’s sake.” He gets up and walks to the window, looks through it for a moment without saying anything. “Don’t you think she’s hot? You should see her naked. Wow, the curves. So nice.”

He leaves the room. I’m staring at an open google page but I haven’t written anything in to search for. Women laugh.

YOU ARE HERE.

forty one The voices and laughs and yelling give me this idea of a violent riot. This is in the cafeteria. The school campus closed once the winds hit over 100 mph, so no one can get out. Someone said it is now a state emergency. The wind has ruined a few dozen homes in the area. The gym has broken windows. Mel’s sitting next to me talking about colleges he’s interested in and the scholarship he got for math. I respond to his questions with one word answers. He has on a V-neck sweater and Khakis. The crease in his Khakis is crisp and it breaks any sort of concentration one has.

“… a small school… involved with political… a voice among…” The burrito I’m eating is warm only on the sides and dry like chalk. Mel is saying something

about some girl he heard killed herself at Homestead because she slept with her teacher and her reputation was ruined. He mentions this because she was supposed to go to the uni he got the scholarship from. I say are you serious? And he says about what?

Holly is walking across the cafeteria. She takes long steps and her hair swings from side to side with each movement. She’s out of place here. She belongs in the movies. Around her everything is a backdrop. A long black dress hangs halfway down her shins. It is artsy. She is art. She has on black shoes, the kind that look like boots and reach to just under the ankle. She stops in her stride and hesitates when looking at her cell, then answers and doesn’t smile when she talks, meanwhile she avoids getting bumped into by others not paying attention. She does this with the grace of a dancer.

In line she slowly scans the cafeteria with her eyes. It’s not a look as if she’s looking for something, just observing what is going on. Peck walks up and grabs Holly’s arm and laughs. They make small talk. Peck talks and Holly nods and listens and even laughs. This goes on for a few minutes as Mel has been saying something this whole time. I’m responding to him and trying to eat the burrito.

“You listening?” Mel says. I assure him I am listening and I nod and say sure while watching Peck and Holly sitting at a

table where Erika, Zack, Shawn, and Layla are. Peck’s mouth keeps moving, Holly keeps nodding, and this happens as she and I make eye contact, hold it for a moment until it is clear I’ve been looking at her, clear so that we both know this. Peck cranes his neck and sees me, nods and keeps moving his mouth. I pop an Altoid and grab my bag and get up in the middle of Mel saying something, assuring him I’m listening, and walk over to Peck and Holly.

“What’s goin on Peck?” “Oh, not much… chillin.” Pause. “What’s up, man?” I’m keeping my eye contact with Holly at a minimum yet it must be noticeable that I’m on to

her. When I look at her she has this smile. And I’m thinking about the oval shape of her face and the curve of her lips and how she doesn’t have much makeup on, noticing all this while Peck talks at me. I sit down and say, “Today in class, Mr Smith’s class, someone in the back row smoked a bowl and everyone but Mr Smith noticed.”

“I heard that one,” Layla says. “I’m sure no one sparked a bowl.” “I’ve sparked bowls in class. No big deal.” “We won’t take your word for it, Peck.” “We create our own realities,” Peck says. “What does that have to do with anything?” “If I say I did then I--” “Did ya hear Mr Crenshaw was fired for grabbing some girl’s ass?” Zack says. “He used to grab my ass all the time,” Layla says. “And you didn’t do anything about it?” “He’s cute.” “For a perv.” “I got an A.” “Did you know Pam’s a dyke?” “Oh please, everyone’s a dyke these days.” “I love dykes,” Zack says.

“Did she get that tattoo…” “Above her ass?” “Yeah…it’s hot.” “I don’t get it.” “It’s like an epidemic,” Holly says. “So is everything.” “Some old lady was stabbed to death with some cooking knife on Moorpark.” “Nevermind.” “Drake and Peck got drunk and messed around?” “Was it a breaking and entering thing?” “Nooo. I heard Drake was high on something and said he was gay.” “Does anyone else’s head hurt?” “Just killed her for fuck’s sake.” “Hang over?” “Yeah, but it’s not just that.” “The food is definitely hurt.” “Mad cow disease?” “Seriously, the end is near.” “SARS is in these days.” “Terrorists poisoned your food. I saw it in the news.” “This weather is a Mayan prophecy.” “We all might already be infected.” “No but this is the year in which the end begins.” I’m watching Holly listen to the talking. The background noise heightens and people are

screaming and feet are stepping. The Ritalin makes my stomach turn, my mind work slow. I strain to stay sharp and alert. The tips of my fingers are numb. Holly is staring off in the distance, knowing that I’m now watching her, as everyone talks and laughs and I’m ready to leave but don’t know how to take Holly with me. Outside a group of people in jumpsuits and tool belts walk by and as a gust of wind hits they all stagger backwards except for one guy who puts his head down and leans forward just in time.

“New Brighton was fun,” Erika says. “Who got arrested?” “Brenton. He had more than an eighth on him too.” “Sure, running from cops is fun,” Layla says. “They weren’t cops.” “Brenton almost killed someone.” “Did they have guns?” “No…” “Pointed right at us.” “The school found out and might get involved.” “I thought he killed someone.” “They had uniforms and ended our fun. Might as well be cops.” “What can they do?” “He is in for attempted manslaughter.” “You guys didn’t tell me about New Brighton. Frisco was cool,” Peck says. “Smoke crack there?” “No. They don’t smoke crack. It’s high quality crystal meth only.” “Oh, ok,” Zack says. “New Brighton?” Holly says. “Like there is a difference. Either way you’re a junkie.” “You’re on the wrong side to say.” “It--” “Cool beach…I’ll take you there…you’ll love it,” Peck says to Holly. “You weren’t there?” Zack says. “Not this time. No one told me.” “There’ll be more,” I say. “That’s cool,” Holly says. “Don’t worry, I’ll take you,” Peck says. “Well, if you think I’d like it then I’ll go,” Holly says, looking my way but not at me.

“I don’t know what you like,” I say. “Don’t worry, Stevo. I’ll take her,” Peck says. “All kinds of things,” Holly says, looking over the rim of the cup while sipping. “Not much else to do. We get drunk and chill,” Layla says and stands up with Zack. Zack bums

a smoke. I give him one, and he leaves with Layla. Up on the clock I notice lunch will be over soon. “Stevo, Holly and I were just about to --” “You don’t need my permission,” I say. “Can I get a cigarette from you?” Holly says. “Maybe not. It kills, you know.” “I’m a big girl.” “I was about to have one,” I say. “I’ll join you,” she says. “I have some in my car,” Peck says. “They won’t let you outside.” “Thanks Peck, you’re great,” Holly says. “I’ll see you later.” “I’ll call you tonight,” Peck says. “Sure. Whatever,” she replies.

forty two My hands are in my pockets. My hood is up but the wind keeps blowing it back. We walk down the hall and around the gym and go through the hole in the fence by the covered swimming pools to the parking lot where Holly begins humming. She pulls out two cigarettes from a pack of Parliaments and puts both in her mouth and crouches down to light them. She gets up and hands me one but it’s not lit. She grabs it from me and tries to light it again then when I reach for it she says don’t you worry I will light your fire but after a few more attempts I tell her to follow me. We go to my car. She lights my cigarette inside where there is no wind and we are safe. I ask if she wanted to bum a smoke, say that my cigarettes are better. She says for later, as dessert. I’m scratching my knuckles. I adjust the mirror. She grabs the mirror and begins fixing her hair.

“Nice little Beemer you’ve got here.” She is not looking at me. “I was thinking. You’re bad. No, that’s only what you want to appear like.”

“That’s funny. Where’d you hear that?” “People here talk. They do.”

Beat. She slips off her big boots. “I like that, though.” She takes a long drag. I look at the sky through the glass in the roof. I

put my free hand in my pocket. We make eye contact and we hold it for over a minute until she starts laughing and I realize this is one of very few times that we looked at each other’s faces and held our glances, and then she quickly looks at her cigarette in her hand. Her hands are small and white, almost powdery. She has small scars on her knuckles. She moves her hands under her legs when she sees I’m watching them.

“I don’t get out much. I knit scarves and listen to classical music.” “This is new.” “I do other things but I don’t want to scare you with them.” I laugh.

Beat. “Look. There it is.” She points to the fence ahead where the numbers four and seven are spray

painted in red. “What is it?” “The answer to life. It’s right here. This whole time,” she says. I say funny. She says she has a secret skill. “You’re on the bus.” I ask what on the bus means. I tell her she is random and she thanks me.

“Ken Kesey and the hippies drove a bus across the country in the 60’s and picked up people to do acid with and to just travel with. But they only took people who were free or hip or interesting. They said you’re on the bus if they thought you were cool.”

“So you want to do drugs with me and travel, is that what you’re telling me?” “Hah. You’re funny. I’m simply telling you, you know, forget it now. Later.” I don’t say anything. “You ready for my secret?” “So soon?” I say. And with her pierced tongue she makes a ripple motion that looks like

waves. The metal stud rolls up and down like a buoy in an ocean. “There. I did it.” She is looking at me. I’m about to say something but she says, “Don’t speak

of this moment.” “Let’s see it one more time.” “What, this?” And she sticks out her tongue and makes it shake like a rattle snake might

before attacking. Then she takes a slow and deep drag of the cigarette and pushes her lips forward and lets the smoke shoot out almost without any force.

She is sitting with her knees bent under her now, not touching the floor mats. Her dress is spilling over the seat and shifter. Her jacket has furry rings around the sleeve and around the hood. Her scarf is red and blue and yellow. It wraps around her neck twice and follows down her front and ends on her thigh. I should be saying something to her. She opens the window, breaking what I now realize was a long silence, letting in a sonic flash of air, opens it just an inch and tosses the butt through the crack which is instantly sucked away somewhere in the distance. Then she closes the window and again there is calm. For a moment she does nothing, only sits with her eyes directed somewhere at the dashboard or maybe the hood, maybe on the loose branch that’s been slowly tumbling in the parking lot. The wind makes the car rock side to side despite the Eiback suspension. With a decisive gesture she pulls lip-gloss from her bag and adjusts the mirror toward her and starts glossing. Carefully going over her thick bottom lip from left to right. She puts the gloss back in her bag and pulls out a pack of gum, puts one stick in her mouth and begins chewing so that I can hear saliva sloshing around in her mouth. She looks up at me finally, gesturing for a stick. I’m watching her the whole time from the corner of my eye.

“What’re you looking at, mister?” she says. I take the stick of gum and put it in my mouth. She tells me to chew. She watches me chew

and then she laughs. The lunch bell rings. She sits there for about a minute, just watching the wind outside, chewing in rhythm, and when the broken tree branch that the wind is lifting and dragging across the parking lot, tumbling just outside my car, finally comes to a stop she puts on her big boots, adjusts her bag on her shoulder and wraps the end of her scarf around her neck, and says this has been just ok, and then she opens the door. forty three The windows are tinted black in the minivan. There is a rumbling sound when accelerating. Drake says it’s the exhaust. Sean doesn’t care what it is. We drive over an island and bottom out, and Sean says it’s not a van, it’s a tank. Some Gotye song is playing. I’m in the back sitting with Drake, Tracy, and Lacy. We’re passing a handle of Smirnoff, drinking it down with a two liter bottle of imitation coke. Drake and I popped Ritalins before and now we’re laughing about an episode of the Simpsons where a guy walks up to Homer and pleads for some spare change so that he can buy a suit for his daughter’s wedding. Homer sympathizes and gives the guy some money. The guy takes the money and laughs and before running off says a suit of drugs.

Sean keeps getting calls and making calls, and over the music I hear him ask about some party in San Jose. Drake and Tracy are singing along to the music, and laughing about this. Tracy has

been talking a lot and Lacy doesn’t talk at all but she has really straight and white teeth. Lacy drinks like a fish, as does Tracy who keeps on talking and drinking. She keeps talking about visiting Hollywood and going to some premiere and meeting Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez and about an after party where she drank with them and other stars. She talks quickly and her hands and head jerk and twitch when she speaks. Drake keeps saying really, really.

“Oh my god, this one time I went out with Fred Durst, but I call him Freddy, we were so drunk. Oh, Freddy was… we were at this party we, I mean, this guy and some girl were so drunk they were walking around naked…”

Drake nods and smiles. His hand is on Tracy’s knee. I drink and say a few words so as not to be quiet too long. Lacy is sitting across from me, making eye contact more than before. Her head keeps swaying on her neck with each bump in the road.

“But don’t think I’m like this total party girl,” Tracy says, pulling the Smirnoff from her lips, her eyes rolling forward from the top of her skull, “Really I get good grades and am applying to Ivy League schools.”

“Me too. I want to get into Brown,” Drake says. “Really?” She leans forward catching herself from falling. “Yeah. Really.” “I’m going to Columbia to be an anti-American rebel,” I say, swigging the Smirnoff. Lacy

laughs and I ask what about she’s laughing. “Not the college but the country.” She replies sarcastically, “I get it. That was funny.” Drake has his arm around Tracy now. He keeps looking down at her breasts. She notices this

and begins leaning her breasts on his arm and chest. The Smirnoff goes around. Sean gets off the phone and says something about a party not far, in Sunnyvale and that is where we are driving to. Sean says it’s a Homestead party. The girls seem excited about this. Tracy says something to Lacy while looking at me. They have not exchanged any words until now. Tracy pulls away from Lacy's ear.

I say, “No secrets in this van or you get left behind.” Drake says, “He didn’t mean that.” And he grabs Tracy’s thigh as she leans her breasts harder

on his arm. “You’re funny,” Lacy says. Showing her pearly white teeth. Her tongue is moving in her mouth

and it’s shiny with wetness and pierced three times with one black and two red studs. “Did you just get those done?” I ask. “What?” “Your tongue.” “Does it look swollen? I can barely put anything in my mouth.” “That doesn’t stop certain things from going in it,” Tracy says while laughing. “You’re the slut, not me,” Lacy says. Four cop cars speed by with sirens on louder than everything while Lacy says something, and

I’m watching Tracy’s mouth move but no sounds are coming out. She says what? Your piercing, I say. She says yes. No, your tongue. She sticks out her tongue, and I see it’s pink and swollen, and the studs look heavy. She

sticks out her tongue even more. It’s swollen and dripping with thick saliva and looks infected and damaged.

“Ok,” I say. And she says nothing until we turn on the street where the party is and people are gathered and four cop cars are parked with the red and blue lights flickering against white homes along the street and that is when she says oh shit.

Zack is being pushed into the back seat of a cop car and Mel is being cuffed. His face is dripping blood on the pavement. Another guy is lying face down on the ground. People are being guided out of the two story house with flash lights and batons. Cops are standing, flashing lights at faces passing by. Lacy is staring out the window at the cars and cops and drunken people. Drake is kissing Tracy who is held up by Drake’s arm. Her body is flailing around like she might have passed out and Drake is trying to hold her up against the inside of the van. We keep driving and a few houses down the street, away from the cops, Peck and Holly are standing outside Peck’s car. They are smoking cigarettes and Peck is moving his arms around while watching the main scene, saying something.

I look back at Tracy. Her arms are leaning off to the sides, flapping around with each bump we drive over. Drake is feeling her up. He looks at me and smiles. Lacy is staring out the window. The yellow reflection from the street lamps is like a strobe on her face. I tell Sean to change the music.

“Was that Holly with Peck?” I say. “You wanna stop?” Sean says. “I don’t like this song either,” I say.

forty four The Falafel Drive-In is crowded. There are people on the streets walking without trouble. The winds have died down and the weather report says the worst is behind us but we should expect a cold winter. Peck is telling me about how he and Holly have been hanging out and that she has the most style of any girl he knows and he keeps asking me if I hit it. They were at some party a few days ago where Mel and Zack got into some fight. Cops showed up, he says, though the party was wack.

Peck’s talking to four girls from different schools and two of them he met on line. He had sex with one of them. One of these girls lives in Frisco and likes to get hit and he met her through a friend.

“We can stay there all night, they always got friends over, it’s cool,” he says. “We’ll smoke on the way. There’s gonna be cool cats. I mean some really interesting heads. Like everyone is just so in tune with everything, you know, like just some solid peeps you can relate to, you know?”

I have a large falafel with extra white sauce and a banana milkshake. Peck tells about the sway bars he’ll get for his Dodge, his new computer and how it’s got eight gigs of ram and 500 gigs of disk space. Oh and you have to see this. He pulls out a cooking knife from a leather case attached to his belt.

“I bought it from this cool cat with a skateboard.” He looks at the knife and twists it so the blade shines and sparkles. “It cuts through any surface. Got a good deal on it. I might start selling them, too. Make some good money selling knives. That guy made a few grand already. The more people he recruits the more he’ll make. Eventually if I recruit enough people I’ll also make bank. And the guy is really smart. He knows a lot about the media and how it’s manipulating the public. If you knew the shit they are up to.”

“They who?” I ask. “What do you mean?” Peck’s jaw is chattering. He keeps talking nonstop. His knees are bouncing under the table.

He’s been licking his lips and looking at everyone that walks by like he might know them or might be expecting something from them.

“Are you smoking shit?” I say. “I haven’t touched meth in I dunno how long but it’s been a long time and anyways… I know, I

know this guy if you wanna get some good shit, actually he’s in Frisco too, one of those in tune cats I mentioned, I mean a really cool guy you can relate to. What’re the plans for tonight? Wanna go or what? And the girl I’m seeing is there. She’s got friends and they’re all cool. I’m sure you can hook up with someone. Oh man they are cool cats.”

My cell is on the table next to Peck’s. His cell rings three times. An old couple sitting at the same bench across from us keeps glancing at us. They are talking very quietly to each other as they look up at us. Two of Peck’s calls are from girls. One of the girls is Holly. As he talks muscles twitch in his face. His bulgy eyes are frames with rings of darkness and his head hangs forward beneath the line of his shoulders. I tell him to say hi to Holly but when he gets off the phone with her he says did you say something? My cell rings twice. It’s Violet but I don’t pick up. The other call is blocked and I pick it up. It’s a wrong number, though the voice is familiar. Before I hang up they say how long are we supposed to wait? I roll a joint Peck says he could have rolled better back in elementary school. We smoke it and I open a pack of Parliaments. Peck says he’s been doing meth and hasn’t slept for six days but didn’t want to tell me because it’s really not a big deal and that he is going through a spiritual transformation that he can’t really explain.

He keeps shifting down to fourth and third on 280 to pass the cars up ahead. I took Ritalin in the bathroom of Falafel Drive-in but don’t tell Peck because it’s too long a story. Peck keeps talking. I’m silent, staring at my reflection in the window. Outside everything is black and superimposed on this blackness is my reflection and it is blue and red and it shifts with the changing of the colorful and bright visuals on the Sony deck.

Peck’s voice is metallic and muddled. His words come out quickly without any separation between them, without any breath or pause or hesitation, though filled with uncertainty and doubt and this is evident by the faint trembling that quietly accompanies each syllable like a far reaching shadow. He’s mentioning this girl he met online, how she’s a total freak, named Amber. She listens to hip hop and smokes buds like a champ, he says. Her favorite movie is Memento, and all this is relevant he adds. They met and smoked and watched The Following, the debut from the director of Memento, he explains. She gave him head for thirty minutes during the film but he couldn’t really get it up so he didn’t come because he couldn’t really get hard. Though it felt good. She’s really smart, he says this twice for emphasis.

His hands are clenching the top of the steering wheel. His head’s moving with the bass of the hip hop I’ve never heard coming from the speakers. He adjusts the volume twice though it’s not enough to notice any difference. He weaves between cars. He adjusts the volume again, again I can’t tell any real difference. He plays with the rearview mirror like it’s important for him to see what is back there, like someone might be following us. Trying to get the mirror just right. Then one more slight degree to the left. Finally it works. I tell him to hit the next car, just bump into it. He doesn’t hear this, only looks at me and nods his head. Then we come to a clearing where there are no cars up ahead and none behind and in this moment Peck turns off the headlights so that everything outside of the car disappears. Blackness. No road ahead. No lanes. No mountains. No sky. The only thing visible is the reflection of the inside of the car from the changing LCD lights on the Sony deck. When he turns the lights on we almost hit the center divide but manage to swerve back into the lane. He says must be these winds.

Lights appear in the distance, more and more, until the darkness is filled with the city which illuminates half the sky. We get off at 13th and hit Van Ness to Geary, getting stuck in late night uphill traffic, driving by streetwalkers, punks, bums, whores, people of the night huddling against buildings, crouched in doorways, fending off the sporadic winds. On the side of a building there is a black outlined face with OBEY written beneath it and Peck says he’s seen it everywhere and that it reminds him of 12 Monkeys. This makes me think of the future and reminds me of falling, fires, buildings collapsing, people running and I’m wondering if there might be something wrong with me or if it is just everything else.

Driving west, we hit 36th and turn left up a slanted street where we park by slanted houses with rusted gates on the windows and cracks running down chipped walls. The grass is dried up and breaking, numbers are crooked, paint flakes are carried off in the wind.

Peck makes a call. As the phone is ringing he tells me that he was told never to just walk up and knock, that he must always call before. He repeats always. A guy with a strip of hair on his chin walks out of the house and opens the gate, hugs and kisses Peck on the forehead, and leads us inside a dark hallway where there are rooms to the sides where I see mattresses and girls and boy sitting on them, girls with greasy faces, smoking cigarettes, skinny and shirtless boys watching small televisions or just lying still and looking at nothing. There are black and red lights glowing, revealing the concrete walls covered with posters of A Clockwork Orange, Sid and Nancy, Kurt Cobain, Reservoir Dogs. Smoke is everywhere and music is playing from some room. A TV is stacked on two crates, a drum set is in the corner, and a mirror is leaning against the wall opposite the couch. This mirror is streaked with what looks like grease and there are cracks in it. The guy with the strip walks out to another room. Peck embraces some guy for an unusually long moment. The guy whispers something into Peck’s ear. Peck introduces the guy to me as Troy.

“You guys should chill,” Peck says. Troy says to me nice to finally meet you kid. I sit down on a couch with no legs. I see myself sitting in the reflection, my hands under my knees, people sitting around and smoking cigarettes and drinking from unmarked plastic bottles with dark liquids inside. Troy keeps looking at himself in the reflection. Then Troy looks at me.

The topic of conversation is the hole in the wall that a friend of Troy’s caused him to make for reasons he doesn’t want to get into. I ask why and he seems surprised that I asked this and the people in the room seem surprised, too, so they whisper into ears.

“We were trippin’ hard, days straight, until she chased me with a knife. Everyone thought she was joking,” Troy says.

The brunette in a bikini, who has been walking in and out of the room says you always say the story wrong. She says this from the other room. Then she says something about sleeping kids but I can’t hear her that well and Troy doesn’t respond, instead he rolls a cigarette.

“We like to have good times, you know. Sometimes things get wild,” Troy says and snorts meth off the glass plate where there is maybe an ounce. Then he lights the tightly rolled cigarette.

“Pass it here,” the girl sitting on the ground with paint on her face says and laughs and then takes a line. She looks at me for a while until I say do I know you? She says nothing and looks at Troy who is taking off his grey Boss shirt to show defined and wiry muscles.

“How old am I?” Troy says to me. “I dunno.” “Yeah, but guess. Look at my body.” He lights another smoke and passes it to a girl named

Eve who has on ripped jean shorts that show her thighs up to her crotch. “What, 24 or 42? Guess.” “28?” I say. Peck and the girl with paint on her face laugh. “Everyone says something under 30,” Peck says. “Remember that girl who said 23?” the girl with paint on her face says. “Yeah, she was tossed.” “Can you imagine I’m 40?” Troy says, looking in the reflection, at his smooth and shiny chest.

“Like Iggy Pop, you know, he ages well. His body is amazing.” The plate goes around, I take a line. The inside of my nose and throat burn. “I do yoga everyday.” Troy takes a line. “I don’t eat fats or starches. I have just under five percent body fat. I can run three miles in less than twenty minutes. That is almost about five and a half minutes per mile, you know.” The girl with paint on her face sits on Troy’s lap and kisses his neck while he’s looking at me. “You know or not?”

“Yeah,” I say. It’s cold inside, and outside there is a wind from the West, a wind coming up off the bay and

moving through the rolling San Francisco hills between the buildings of the city until it comes up against the windows and cracks somewhere in the house and lets a whistling wind enter. A guy who just sat down has a shirt with love is a battlefield and a Colt 45 on it. He says something in Troy’s ear. I hear some of it. About not getting the ends off north shore. This makes Troy mad. The guy says Alex is expecting girls soon.

Troy’s cigarette is out and the girl with the paint lights it for him. Silhouettes enter the room and leave right away after they do a few lines. One girl whispers something to the girl on Troy’s lap with paint on her face. Both girls leave the room. The beat is not consistent but the guy keeps drumming, stops only to do lines, and it’s hard to talk over the noise.

Troy says he’s in a band. Peck is talking about how good a guitarist Troy is. Peck is talking fast and moving his hands in the air and no one seems to realize how important it is, what he is saying, except for him. Any movements by anyone are forced and slow.

In the mirror, things are out of focus but still I stare through the reflection at the girl in the bikini who is talking to Peck and has one hand on his neck. She sees me and smiles until Peck pulls her closer to him and until they start licking each other’s tongues.

The guy with the gun on his shirt is talking about war. Peck says something to comment on this but Troy disagrees and they listen to Troy.

“It’s all simple. I mean war, and space, all these things are constant. All we can do is let it take us, just go with it.”

“Yeah man, everything that happens is already supposed to happen, it’s all…” The guy with the 45 on his shirt is speaking.

The plate goes around. Snorting and sniffing. The insides of my nose and brain and throat are burning and itching. I want to get up and walk around. Some girl brings me water. I go to the bathroom and on the way pass a room where there is a crib. My pee is clear but when it comes out it itches. I examine my penis which looks normal like always.

I can’t sit still. My legs and teeth are shaking. Hours pass. I try to tongue the back of my throat for what might be half an hour but this does nothing except makes my whole mouth ache. Peck and Troy and this guy with a 45 are talking continuously and quickly. The guy on the drums has been sitting and beating away the whole time, occasionally stopping to stare at empty spaces. Smoke fills the room, lingers in the air, making it hard to see myself in the reflection.

The sun is coming through the window and hits the mirror making the smoke more vivid. A baby is crying softly. I get up and feel dizzy and nearly tip over. Troy chuckles at this. Down the dark hall I see in a room a young boy and girl lying on a thin mattress, maybe 16, her top off, him in swim trunks, and they seem too skinny, bones accentuate the shapes of their bodies, ribs and knees and

shoulders, their limbs stretched out as if free and flying in the sky. A spoon and a syringe lie on the mattress between them. And nearly covered, to her side, a baby on it’s back grabbing with one hand at the air from under cloth or maybe a shirt, this in slow motion, it’s head tilting and turning, trying to uncover itself in the stuffy congested air. Mini gasps of air come from its mouth. The girl’s eyes roll around once then twice in her head as she lifts her chin towards me and without ease begins to open her mouth.

He actually gets a lot of love here so there’s no need to stress you know, some girl walks by in the hall and says to me without stopping. Someone down the hall in the kitchen asks what about, and the girl responds with, the valley kid is watching little Chopper sleep like he’s never seen a baby. Kinda freaks me out.

I piss in the bathroom where there is no mirror, or window, but lots of debris and bottles and towels and things I can’t really make out because the green nightlight gives off only so much light, but first I had to move aside the limp body of a black kid with an afro from near the doorway. Before pissing I could hear air moving in and out of him and slow laughing from the other room.

The drummer is leaning against the wall, motionless, staring at me. The girl with the bikini is

unconscious next to me. I vaguely remember her and me kissing. Peck stumbles in the room holding the inside of his elbow. The girl with paint on her face is leaning against him. Her eyes are nearly closed. Troy is holding the plate which is now spotted with powder, he says that coincidences are not coincidences that in the chaos of everything there is an underlying order and the people you come across and situations you find yourself in might seem random but in fact they are part of a complex unseen system which rules over everything and that to be free you must let yourself go and be absorbed by this. That is when interesting things start to happen. He tells the girl with paint on her face to check on the baby who is now crying. She slowly gets up and stretches her arms and legs out, puts a cigarette between her lips, and begins looking under pillows and the sofa and when a minute with no words passes and the baby starts crying louder Troy blows up and yells at her to check on Chopper and he calls her a dumb bitch. She stops and looks at Troy with the cigarette limp in her mouth, then Troy finally lights her cigarette and she says nothing and leaves the room.

Troy looks at me. He says he wants me to come by, without Peck, he whispers this, and meet more of his friends. They like to have real fun. He emphasizes real fun. Me coming here is more than a coincidence, it was meant to be, he says.

“You weren’t here before but now you are.” forty five

“Where is Pam? I’m looking for Pam,” the man says. “I know Pam.” I hear coughing away from the phone. “How do you know Pam?” “Do you live across the street? You’re the sicko that calls a lot.” “I’m looking for Pam.” When Holly walks up she says, is it the pedophile from across the

street? “Not enough people walk,” she says. I leave my car in the lot and we walk to her house. She has on tight blue leggings and a jean

mini skirt and thick socks that come up just under her knees. The day is warm and the sun is out. The weather report said this December will be one of the coldest. Parts of Europe have never seen so much snow as they have been getting in the past few weeks. Global weather is changing, they all keep saying. I heard somewhere that someone predicted the next ice age.

We’re walking and talking and she keeps bumping into my arm. Holly’s cell rings. She looks at it and doesn’t pick it up. After a few minutes of silence I ask why she didn’t pick it up and after another minute of silence she says what?

“You remind me of someone.” She touches my arm. We stop at a liquor store. I stare at the magazine covers with cars and women and men with

muscles and important people well lit and wearing dark suits and thumbnail sized electronics. When

finally I pick up a GQ with George Clooney on the cover the register guy says read the sign buddy. The sign reads do not read the magazines if you are not going to buy them.

Holly says something to the register guy who has a hairy face and is paying close attention to the TV in the small corner. Holly buys Nat Shermans and pulls out one from the pack and lights it, then stares at me.

“You know what the problem with people is,” she says. “They never say or do what they want to. Everyone is scared of everything. Everyone’s gonna die one day and this scares the shit outta people.”

“Maybe he likes his job. Or a good show is on.” She laughs a short half laugh. “You have not a clue what I am trying to say.” The apartment complex is tan. We pass a fenced pool that looks familiar, like maybe I’ve been

here when it was dark out. Holly says we can take a dip later. She says the pool is heated. I follow her upstairs and look back down at the pool. A lobster is moving around at the bottom. I tell her but she doesn’t believe me and doesn’t bother to look and instead says I am weird.

The living room is filled with boxes. Boxes are on the floor, stacked up. She tells me to get comfortable in her room. She grabs the remote and turns on the stereo that plays some girl punk I’ve never heard. She takes a digital camera off the desk and starts taking pictures of me. We’ll take more pictures later. She says she loves pictures, taking them, posing for them.

“It makes me feel like I’m famous,” she says. I pick up the camera and click it at her as she poses and pouts her lips and arches her back. She says she loves getting pictures taken. I notice pictures on her wall, pictures of trees, feet and shoes, roads, people’s faces up close, corners of buildings, blurry pictures taken from inside cars and groups of people. Pictures of boys standing in some messy room.

She shows pictures of kids dressed in black. With piercings in their faces and studs on their belts, tongues sticking out, cigarettes and beer in hand. I hear the front door bang open and through the door I see a dark colored kid come in and sit on the ground in front of the TV.

“My little bro, half brother. I’ve got two.” She shuts the door and puts a chair against it and says, “Likes to barge in uninvited. There’s no lock.” She opens a drawer and pulls out a small plastic bag and rolls a joint which we smoke while lying on her bed.

“My parents are divorced. They got divorced when I was ten. My dad disappeared. My mom married an Afghan guy. That’s their kid in there. My mom treats them better than she does me. That’s life.” She laughs and picks up a DVD case. She asks if I’ve seen The Following. I tell her I’ve heard of it somewhere. Her friends used to do drugs and watch movies. She has seen more than 5000 films. She can remember most of them. Her friends that went to rehab were all into movies and that’s why she likes movies. “I hated it there. I am a whole new person here. I can become whoever I want and no one will know that I was any different. A new life. But I really am set on living in LA. There, people can be someone new everyday. Like in movies.” She laughs.

Violet calls my cell. I end the call before it rings twice. “Who’s that?" Holly says. "A girlfriend?” “It’s an old friend. I’m surprised she called.”

Beat. “I have no one to sneak out with. We should sneak out together. We can wander the streets.” “I have a car,” I say. “You’re more free to wander by foot. I used to do that back home. Just walk around at night.” We smoke cigarettes and ash on a Rolling Stone magazine from June. “So the guy I like…” she says. From under her bed she pulls out a jug of wine and pours it into

a red plastic cup. She pulls off the Carlo Rossi sticker. “Well his friend says not to get involved with him because he’ll treat me like shit. He’s an asshole. His friend claims. But I’m not sure I care what his friend says.”

I don’t say anything for a long moment and take a swig of wine after she does. “And because of this I like want him more.”

The CD stops. She pours more wine and says to drink it quickly. I do so. She pours more and downs it even faster. She refills it again and says we’ll sip this one with class. The ashtray is now a Diet Coke can. All this without any music playing and the short silences in between the burning sound of cigarettes and our clothes rustling and our steady breathing become distinct and profound.

Smoking and lying on her bed, she says she doesn’t like to be alone with her thoughts, that the mind is a scary place and to keep it safe she needs to keep it busy by being with people and always doing something. She finishes her wine and puts the cup on the floor and as she does this the

bed moves and bumps against the wall. She places a pillow between the wall and the bed and then looks at me and smiles.

The TV volume goes up in the other room. I can hear our kissing and breathing and the bed bumping against the wall. Her mouth tastes like smoke and wine. When I take off her shirt she starts feeling herself, grabbing her pale white breasts, moaning. She licks my stomach and chest and then I do the same to her. I can’t hear what she whispers. Our pants are on. Her pelvis is pressing into mine, her legs wrapped around me. She is grinding into me, back and forth slowly. I think she whispers I want you. The pillow no longer muffles the bed against the wall. She gets on top of me and moves back and forth, and I think she whispers again. The TV volume goes up louder. She rolls off me and says in a whisper that I’m the guy she likes. After staring at me for, lying on top of me, my hands to my sides on the bed, she gets up and walks out of the room and I notice a picture on the wall of her face close up with black make up around her eyes. She is grinning and winking. forty six

“This song was in some movie, wasn’t it?” “I forget.” “Who cares? I’m sloppy. It’s good.” “Turn this up.” “Drake, can you spot me?” “Whaddya want?” A pause. “Consider this a loan.” The menu is blurry and makes no sense. It gives off a bright and blurry light. How can anyone

see this? “Ever try ranch instead of mayo with fries?” Zack says. “Is there no more beer?” “Are you on crack?” “No. Peck is.” There is laughter. “We should get some. Stevo, you have your ID?” “Really, though, ranch. It’s the ketchup of the future.” “It’s good. Nothing new. My grandma knows this. Future? Hahah.” “Has anyone heard from Peck?” “He’s all right,” I say. “I told you.” Pause. “How long were you guys locked up?” “That guy’s all over the place.”

“Just a night. But now I gotta go to some alcohol class every weekend for the next few months,” Zack says.

“Isn’t that Peck guy gay?” “I found a twenty dollar bill on the ground by the ATM.” “That doesn’t warrant bragging rights.” “Are you going to buy a sack?” “What’s with you, Drake? You’re weird all the sudden.” “What are you talking about?” “That’s not his real name, is it? Or his parents were just screwed up.” “He’s the standard closet queer.” “I saw some shoes I wanted to get.” “There’s some huge sale in Valley Fair.” “Does it help I got attacked by Mexicans while locked up?” Drake’s laughing. Layla asks what about. Drake keeps on laughing and then Zack starts

laughing. Layla is now shouting what are you laughing about? I start laughing when she asks me what’s going on. I tell her it was something funny.

We drive away from the lot, leaving behind the bags and wrappers and napkins all over the parking lot. Mel’s been quiet for a while. He mumbled something a moment ago but it made no sense and no one asked what it was.

“Will you kiss me with ranch fries in my mouth?” Zack says. “I wouldn’t kiss you if you were chewing five Altoids,” Layla says and laughs. “I can kiss you,” Mel says, “if you give me head and let me beat you up afterwards.” We

laugh. Beat.

“And get this, I gotta go to therapy for aggression problems.” “That is unexpected,” Layla says. “We laid the guy flat. Later someone said I was sitting on him and just wailing at his face. I

don’t remember any of this. I heard his face is pretty destroyed. He needs reconstructive surgery,” Mel says. Beat.

“His family might press charges,” Drake says. And the whole time he is completely still, not moving, only looking straight ahead and driving.

There is a siren and then it fades away in the distance. Drake tells everyone to shut up. The hum of the engine becomes distinct and somehow menacing. No cars are on the road. Most of the street lamps are blinking yellow. We drive through them speeding up, going faster and faster.

“Do you guys feel that?” Drake says. Everyone is somewhere else.

“I think the tire might be flat.” Though the ride has been constant. We pass a few more intersections. Drake pulls over in a Walgreens parking lot and gets out and lights a cigarette. He circles the truck and kicks at each tire. Mel turns on the music, breaking the long silence. Layla sighs.

“Where did the pretty boy go?” Mel says. “Who?”

A pause. “I heard if you die in a dream, that you really die,” Jessica says. “Really?” Layla says.

Silence. “Yeah, ranch is really good,” Mel says, finishing his curly fries. “What are we doing parked here?” “Smoke break.” “For ten minutes?” “I died in a dream,” I say. “I die all the time.” Mel says. “That doesn’t make sense.” “Where is Drake?”

forty seven

“Whatta you wanna do?” “I’m tired.” “Pass it this way.” We’re watching El Mariachi in HD and Nate keeps saying how it cost close to nothing to make.

He says something about medical experimentation as money and I’m not sure what he’s referring to. Layla's been holding the joint too long and she’s talking on her cell on the couch and her foot is rocking up and down making her whole body bounce.

“What you want?” “I’m tired.” “Pass it this way.” “I’m bored. Let’s do something.” Somewhere in the house an American song from the fifties is playing. One of the Bobbies?

Layla takes another drag while talking until Nate takes the joint from her hand, hits it and says something but I’m not listening. I go to the bathroom and help Jessica puke in the toilet because she’s

getting it on the sides and on the round blue rug. I piss in the backyard where it’s windy and cold and I can feel winter coming because usually it is not this cold at this time of the year. This winter is different, I feel. My car has no gas and I notice this when I get in it after finishing a cigarette, then I put on some depressing music, and look at the last text message I sent to Holly which reads you are fun and sweet and i want to sex you up. i am high. are you? Nate calls and asks where I am because I have been gone already for forty minutes and I tell him I wanted to buy more smokes. When he asks if I was going to buy more beer I tell him the pressure is too low to get anywhere and to this he says okay.

“Should we do something?” Layla says. “Why?” “Jessica’s been in there a while.” “She’s fine. Give her a lollipop.” Another joint goes around until it’s done. Layla is on the phone, talking about how she wants

to buy a new phone and an mp3 CD player for her car, one that has clear visuals on the face, and so that both the phone and player will be compatible. Nate keeps saying to shut up because it’s an important part of the movie. Everything is compatible now.

“What movie?” “I heard Peck and Drake fucked,” Layla says into the phone. “I never heard that …” “I heard Peck is into weird shit in San Fran.” “He’s always been a little weird,” Nate says. “That’s where he got into all this queer shit.” “Isn’t he with that new girl? Holly?” “Did you go there, Stevo, and get in some orgy or something?” “Watch the movie and shut up,” Nate says. “Really, an orgy?” “Yeah, and there were animals too.” Things up close seem larger than they really are. I am remembering this from an art book I

looked through once. I remember this as I’m flipping through People magazine from the table. Things up close seem larger than they really are and things far away seem smaller. I remember this now and somehow it seems very relevant.

The movie comes to a stop and Nate gets up and stretches. Someone’s making noise in the kitchen and banging together pots and glasses, slamming cupboards. Layla is talking on the phone and Zack is touching and kissing her stomach as she’s pretending not to be distracted, holding in giggles, trying to push him away.

“Why don’t you call up that girl of yours?” Dan says when he comes in the room still eating cereal. Dan has bloodshot eyes. “If anyone wanted Fruit Loops, well, you’ll have to buy more.”

“She’s your girl?” I hear. I don’t say anything for a while. Then say, I just talked to her. I’ve been sitting in one spot

without moving. I’m playing with the keys in my pocket. Jane screams and no one does anything. Jane says Jessica is dead and screams again. Nate tells Jane to shut up and then Jane sits down and whispers something into Melissa’s ear. Dan is slurping and crunching cereal. Layla giggles and looks at me and is licking a lollipop, making hard sucking and popping sounds.

“She’s passed out, that’s all, chill out already,” Nate says. “There’s this show we have to watch in 20 minutes. I forget the name but it has this girl that

is really hip and cutting edge. In the next episode she should have another boyfriend.” All the shadows on the floor and walls shift and at one point reflect off the glass table. Jane is

taking off her clothes because she says it’s getting hot. I’m wearing my puffy jacket and a beanie. Jane’s in her bra and panties and socks. I can’t feel anything even though she’s rubbing my legs, telling me she’s been watching me watch her. Layla and Nate leave the room after making out on the couch for nine minutes. I know this because three songs have played. Usually songs are about three minutes. Jane whispers that she wants to see me naked and I don’t say anything. She starts licking my hand, sucking my finger.

“This isn’t it. It was supposed to be on now.” Jessica is unconscious and naked in the tub and Nate is jerking off over her. When I see this

he looks at me and says to wait, calls me a pervert and says he is trying to have a private moment. I ask where Layla is and he says she’s in the room. When I look in one of the rooms I see Layla lying on the bed playing with herself. Exaggerating moans.

No missed calls. No new messages.

“Isn’t it such a great day? I mean, don’t you feel so good?” Jane says in a low and slow voice. She takes off her bra.

“It’s really bright in here.” “Do you think these panties look sexy on me?” I stare at her and say nothing. “Do you want to go somewhere?” The crumpled wrapper of the lollipop on the glass table is unfolding, expanding and making

faint crackling sounds. This is prophetic and somehow representative of so much more though I don’t know what. Stillness.

“Hello? What is wrong?” Jane says, her hands rubbing her tits anxiously. She says she’s really tripping hard and wants me to touch her. That she feels really alone and needs someone. I close my eyes, my hand in my jacket pocket holding my phone. It will ring. Dan says something but it’s not clear and I don’t ask him to say it again and then Mel asks who came all over Jessica. forty eight We have a smoke each and two Altoids and she puts the chair against the door and turns on her girl punk music. Boxes and clothes and magazines are scattered on the floor like before. Her half brother is in the other room playing his games like he does. I’m sitting on my hands. I lay down on the bed. I say something and she says something and it doesn’t matter what it is we say because she is looking at me and is waiting for me to start. I will eat her out for half an hour. This makes her feet and legs tremble. Time is irrelevant when her warm thighs are pressed against the sides of my head. We’ll have sex like we’ve had everyday for the past two weeks. The bed will bang against the wall and the pillow that is always so faithfully jammed between the wall and the bed frame won’t muffle the sound much at all the same way it never has. Things often fall. I can already taste her sweet juices in my mouth. Her juices are tart. Her skin is salty. She says it’s because she ate processed foods with preservatives as a kid. Now she knows better.

“Do you have any more cigarettes?” She nods and runs her hands through the covers next to me. There is a long pause and our eyes are open and looking around the room. I don’t know where she’s looking. A long pause.

“Why didn’t you want to have sex with me the first time you came here?” she says. I say I dunno. “So why didn’t you?” She gets up and pulls a cigarette pack from her bag, pulls one out and

lights it. “I would have been ok with it. I was kind of waiting for you to make a move.” I watch her smoke the cigarette slowly and deeply. The smoke is sucked in her lungs and it

stays in for a while as she speaks and moves about, throws some clothes off the bed into the corner, then the smoke comes rushing out of her nose and mouth at once. She does this over and over, each time holding the smoke in a little longer. Once the smoke doesn’t come out.

“I thought it was your first time,” she says. “You’re not as forceful as other guys. It’s kinda sweet.”

The toilet flushes and she comes out wearing a bright red wig. “Do you like it?” I nod and say yes. “It’s so boring being one person,” she says.

From the kitchen, something shatters and her brother says oh fuck, I mean damn it. “Don’t cuss, you’re too young to cuss,” yells Holly. Then a long pause and she says she can’t

meet me after school tomorrow. I ask why. She says there’s a friend who wants to see her. forty nine I park and wait. He told me on the phone not to turn off the engine so it’s still running. I’m listening to the Stones and waiting. I change the song, pressing shuffle. Angie comes on. A few minutes pass and I turn off the engine. The song is nearly done. I light a cigarette. I’m thinking about calling him so he comes out sooner. It’s still light out but the moon is full and shining.

I hear Drake yell. He’s coming out of the second story window. He jumps off the roof to the lawn and starts towards the car. The house door swings opens and Drake’s aunt runs out in a robe, and his uncle follows behind. They are yelling for Drake not to leave.

“Lessgo, lessgo, come on!” he says, about to open the door. I turn over the key. The engine doesn’t start.

His aunt’s face is contorted, screaming to get back in the house. I’m gonna call the cops and they’re gonna arrest you both, she screams.

“Lessgo! Lessgo!” I turn the key again and this time it starts. He gets in and slams the door. I hear his uncle yelling to stop at once, that Drake is in trouble. The tires peel out and we accelerate down the street.

“Alright. That’s an entrance,” Drake says. He flips through my CDs and takes out The Stones and then puts in something else. He does this a few times, puts a CD in, listens to the first few seconds and then takes the CD out. “Lemme get a cig?”

We’re smoking and listening to Modest Mouse, going through red lights on De Anza. A flash in the intersection blinds me. You gotta cover your face every time that happens, then they can’t recognize you in the picture. This is the future, Drake says. I stop at the next red light. A dropped Civic rolls up next to us and revs its engine. Its exhaust wheezes higher and higher.

Drake says, “Don’t let this guy take you.” I give the pedal some pressure and drop the clutch when the light turns green and the tires

grip the road and the Civic takes off up ahead. Drake says he knows the guy and that he must have gotten a chip or gears because he was never this fast.

“What was that?” I say. “A fast Civic.” “No. That Bond shit you pulled out your window.” “Aunt flipped out about a ripped leather seat.” A pause. “Some other shit, too. Whatever.” “You jumped out the window because of some leather seat?” I say. “I jumped out because they wouldn’t let me go downstairs to get to the front door.” He takes

a deep drag of the cigarette. “It was her favorite leather seat.” Drake hands me half a pill that I swallow.

“What was that?” “Ecstasy I had for a while. Think they’re called Microsoft. Or maybe IBM.”

We drink espressos at Coffee Society and talk to Igor, Navid, the Russians, and Vince. Navid asks about Halloween. I tell him how Nate and Zack and Jeff and Sean and Matsuko and I took Cal Train to the city and got drunk on the train that had to stop due to some emergency – a three car pile up on the tracks – than walking around the crowded streets of San Fran. Can’t really drink anywhere so we walked until we got sober. Navid says they went to a strip club in Oakland and got in a fight with one girl’s pimp and were kicked out. Igor says he heard how Brenton’s going to jail for killing someone. I say I don’t think he killed him. Vince says he heard that the guy was hospitalized and later died.

A double kegger is happening, Vince says. In San Jose. You guys can get a ride. I give them each a smoke and talk about how back in the day we all used to trip out at Walden’s, which is close to this party off 2nd Street.

Drake and I see The Faculty in the Oaks Theatre and miss the first few minutes. The camera movements are slow and the music is eerie. He says it feels European or something. Drake is leaning forward to listen. No one’s in the theater except two people that are making noises, talking, and

laughing. There’s a foot tapping and chips being crunched. I can’t sit still after a while. I mutter things I’m thinking and the ecstasy is making me think a lot. My heart’s beating out of rhythm. I need to drink something. The people up front aren’t even watching the film. My tongue feels like cotton. Someone says shhh.

“Can you hear that?” “What?” I say. “My teeth grinding like mad.” Smoke is rising towards the projected film. The smell of marijuana fills the theatre and the

laughing starts up again. A foot is tapping. A hand is on my thigh and this makes my foot stop. The hand doesn’t move from my thigh until I get up and walk out after the credits. Drake and I walk out to the front of the theatre and smoke cigarettes. We get back in the car. He puts in a CD and he asks what it is after a while of listening to it. It’s Charlie Parker I say.

“There is hella speed in this shit,” Drake says. “Charlie is like that.” “The pills.” “I’d scratch my eyes out.” “They just lit up right inside.” “That crunching was going on the whole time.” “That’s my jaw. Keeps crunching,” Drake says.

Sitting on the curb in front of Joy’s house Drake is trying to decide if he should call Vince and Igor and hit up the party. I’m about to dial Vince’s number when Drake starts telling me about how Joy’s parents don’t have a clue that he sleeps over twice a week. He says Joy has a license plate frame that has princess written on it. YOU ARE HERE.

“She talks during sex and doesn’t remember it later. Like some people talk in their sleep.” Pause. “Like she’s having a conversation with someone, and it’s not me but just to herself or something. Shit like that.” He looks off in the distance. “She’s possessed during sex. Goes somewhere else.” Beat.

“I think her and her dad have something going on,” he says. “Whaddya mean?” “She’ll joke about fucking her dad. She’ll say things about how manly he is. My hands are not

like his, that mine are soft and aren’t wrinkled. Weird comparisons and shit.” I’m looking over numbers in my phone. “Once I came over at daytime. I just walked in. She got up from the couch fast, where he was

sitting.” I am about to press send on Holly’s number. “She was wiping her mouth and I could see her dad was zipping himself up, just standing in the background before he went to his room.” I put away my phone and pull out a smoke and pack it on my palm and light it.

“For a virgin she gives the best head. I mean she gives all parts equal attention. Cupping balls and licking shaft. No virgin knows this. She must practice.”

“On her dad?” Drake is leaning on me, slowly rocking back and forth. It seemed like an accident at first but

now he is deliberately pressing into me. I’m holding my cigarette and pull out my phone again and look at Holly’s number, about to press send. Drake leans toward me and kisses my mouth. The stubble on my face against his makes a discomforting sound.

“Do you feel high?” he asks. “I’m wired.” Two seconds. “Only a little wired.” “Me too. Maybe they expired or something.” He tries to kiss me again. I move away. He clears his throat and leans closer so that I’m

leaning back to the ground with him nearly on top of me. A car passes with its headlights on us. I push him away so that we’re both sitting.

“Get in there. Princess is waiting.” “I’m not sure I want her now. She bores me.” “She’s waiting. Don’t disappoint her. Or her daddy will get her first.” He is looking down at the

concrete and rubbing his arm. “He might be having her right now.” A pause. “Maybe I can still catch them,” he laughs and

leaves.

I brush my teeth hard, scrubbing fast. I spit blood and take a shower. Hot and long. I take three Ritalins and drink them down with a glass of tap water. I’m shaking in my bed. I’m sweating. I stare at the red light on the stereo for an hour so that when I look away everything is red. fifty Drafts: unsent Subject: for you I feel like there is so much i want to tell you but whenever we are together i freeze up and am stuck in the moment and just am not sure how to act completely. i just get blocked and i end up playing some part for you. I figure this is because I really like you and haven’t felt this way about anyone. the way you are, the way you move, the words you say, the way you dress, you are completely amazing and if by telling you this I am somehow looking weaker and less like a man then I am willing to put myself in this place because this is what I feel. you should know this about me. you wake me up to another world I didn’t know I had, a place where there is some meaning and purpose. just you and me. I’ve been living like a zombie. I feel everything around me is somehow pulling me down and making me turn into something I am not. There has been darkness all around me for sometime and I was beginning to think that this is all there is to everything, and this darkness has kept me cold and made everything meaningless but since I met you and have been getting to know you I feel that I am becoming alive again, that this waste of a life that I lead is suddenly proving to be different. turning into something good. I hope this isn’t too much for you because usually people don’t say these things, maybe because people don’t have these thoughts in their heads. I hope this makes sense because I’m really high and it is 5 and the sun is not out yet. stevo fifty one

“Don’t say these things,” she mumbles. “Tell me.” “Don’t say these things unless you mean then. Really mean them.” Then she is quiet for a

while as I think I hear someone getting up in the next room. Beat.

“Why?” “Not everything can be said.” The nightlight by the floor makes shadows on the ceiling when I move my hands. It is four in

the morning. She came through the window at one and she'll leave at quarter to six like she usually does. She turns over so her back is to me and I’m staring at the shadows. I haven’t moved since I came. I came four times tonight. I’m thinking about what to tell her. I change the CD. I put my playlist on. Something by Arcade Fire. Something slow and then I stare at the wall. She mumbles things like she does in her sleep.

“You there?” She says nothing for a few minutes. She starts mumbling these things again and she is louder

this time. Her mouth is a sliver of an air vent and her lips jut out and back in ever so slowly so that it is almost not recognizable, nothing distinguishable from the stillness anywhere else. Her face is frozen. Her left hand pointed up and her fingers curled towards her palm, stiff and dry. Her mouth moves. I can never tell when she mumbles if it’s the same thing. I think I hear her snore and I’m lying naked on the sheets and I’m not moving and the CD player changes discs a few times and when I call out her name the last time, drying the tears from my eyes, she mumbles what now sounds like get off

the red wagon, you’ll fall. All of this is happening while the sun starts filling in through the separations in the blinds and with it the day will start after she leaves out the window again. fifty two We were at the cabin in Tahoe waiting for the girls from the liquor store to call us. Drake started talking to them when we were buying beer and something to mix with Sprite. He asked them what there was to do around here and one of the girls, the one who had blotchy marks on her face but had nice hair, said we like to party. Drake got one of the girl’s numbers, the girl with the nose ring, and called her and left a message. They were going to tell all their friends that we had a whole cabin to ourselves where we could chill and drink but they didn’t call. Drake tried to sound exciting in the message but instead it sounded like something else, something less convincing.

Roman wasn’t saying much. For most of the night he sat on the couch with his head tilted back with a cigarette in his mouth and a drink always in his hand. It was later in the night when we accepted the fact the girls were not coming when Roman began pouring GHB and we kept taking cap after cap.

“The date rape drug.” “Roofies are the date rape drug. Thing is, this shit can make you pass out and when girls do

that they get fucked by desperate dudes,” Nate says. “Lucky dudes, you mean, haha.” “Everyone is getting raped tonight,” Roman says and laughs.

“Did you have sex with that girl that was passed out? At that party in the beginning of the year?” Nate asks Drake. “The one with the funny teeth.”

“She wanted it and I gave it to her.” “She wanted it even when she was passed out?” “Am I not getting through to you or what?”

Nate started vomiting on the mirror in the bathroom and he kept vomiting even when Roman and I put him in the tub with his clothes on and the shower running. Roman said he didn’t want to handle his shit anymore and I felt like I would start vomiting too because by that point, looking at the mirror and the floor by the tub there were chunks of partially digested food and brown syrupy liquid and the room was spinning and blurry and stank of human waste. “Do you think there are any girls in South Shore?” Drake asked.

Drake called the girls’ number three more times and left only one message that sounded foolish because he repeated himself twice and you could tell he was drunk and horny. The outside air was cold and the sky was dark while we smoked our cigarettes. I kept mentioning that we should go somewhere but Roman said there’s a lot of nothing out there, and he was back on the couch with his eyes closed when he said this. I’ll go with you, Drake said. We left and drove around the lake to South Shore in about forty minutes where I thought there would be more people walking around and more to do. We smoked cigarettes in front of a casino on the border.

“Are you cool to drive or what?” Drake said. “I just drove here ok? Why do you ask me after we drive?” “So you’re cool then?” “I guess so.” Cops drove by us slowly and stared at us but didn’t stop. We walked a ways down the street

and there was a group of girls in front of one casino, looking like they wanted attention, talking loud, showing skin out in the 50 degree night. Drake talked to them and I only smoked cigarettes. When Drake mentioned our cabin on North Shore they said they had somewhere else to go. The girl that said this was kind of fat. When I finally said something I asked the cute girl with the tank top who kept looking at the ground what she was doing tonight and before she could open her mouth the fat girl said we have plans. We walked further down the street and Drake said we should get a whore.

Those were whores. They were? I had 13 dollars on me and a credit card. Drake had a few ones and some change. Maybe we could get a blow job in an alley at least, he said with a handful of change in his palm.

Back at the cabin, already about four in the morning, Nate was unconscious in his own puke in the bathtub.

“Is he dead?” “Don’t worry about him,” Roman said as he was sitting on the balcony smoking cigarettes with

his shirt off talking on the phone. “Is there anything to get drunk on?” Nate said. Find anything? He said. “Are you cold?” I can’t feel anything, he replied. Drake started saying something about the girls when Roman interrupted and asked if we

wanted more GHB. I said no. Drake didn’t say anything and then we ended up in the kitchen doing the rest of the GHB. There was no more Sprite to drink. Drake said he would have fucked the fat chick at that point. Roman said we didn’t try hard enough. He hadn’t said much at all the whole time we were at the cabin. One thing he did say, sometime during the day, when Nate was still coherent and was talking about being back in Cupertino, Roman said he needed to get away from there, just go and not come back and leave everything for something else. fifty three I tell him how I have a dream where crowds of people are running, where streets are on fire but that that is all I remember. Maybe it is not even a dream.

“What do you think this means?” “It could mean many things,” I say. “What kinds of movies do you watch?” “What do movies matter? This is my mind.” “Do you play a lot of video games?” he says.

Beat. “It must be the movies. I like disturbing movies. You’re right, it‘s probably nothing more,” I

say but don’t think he picks up the sarcasm because he simply nods at this response with self appraisal.

He asks how everything is at home. “In relation to everything else, things are normal.” He asks the same question in another way, with different words. “Things are normal in relation to everything else,” I say. “What is it you want to do?” he asks. “I want to go somewhere new and different.” Pause. “Just to get away. Somewhere else.” He says, “Get away from what? What is here?” “I want to go where there is some decency, where not everyone is so sick and corrupted.” “What makes you think things are the way you say they are?” I don’t say anything. He writes notes into a notebook. The sunlight coming through the

window shifts in the room and the shadows of the pens and folders and books and desk and chairs and his face all move so that everything looks completely different for one moment. He changes into someone else, like the creases in his face suddenly give him a new depth and darkness and somehow accentuate the way I thought he was when I first saw him. I look away. I can tell he is staring at me for a long moment as though he’s about to say something. I’m scratching the tops of my hands then stop and grab the armrests of the chair.

“If you don’t confront these issues, you’ll have trouble communicating later.” I only look at him. “You’re not going to have healthy relationships with people because of the way things are, or

rather because of the way you think things are.” “What way are things really? Maybe you can tell me.” He doesn’t say anything right away. “This is how I help people,” he says.

Beat. “I am having trouble understanding,” I say.

“You need to make a physical change so that a mental change will follow,” he says as he writes notes in his notebook.

“You mean medication?” “That is what I mean.”

I ask him if I can smoke in the office. He says no. I pull out a cigarette and put it in my mouth. He pauses for a second, the cigarette in my mouth, he continues speaking. I blink for a long moment. I’m not responding to his questions the way he wants. He’s trying to get me to tell him things that will help him to find a reason I am the way I am. People are not so simple to figure out. People cannot be simplified.

“You have some confrontation issues in you,” he says. He keeps staring at me. I take the cigarette out of my mouth and hold it in my fingers.

“Draw me a picture. I want you to draw whatever you want,” he says. “This is child psychology. This is foolish.” He is very still and looking at me as I’m holding back

a laugh. “Commit to it. I want to see it soon.”

It will be of a grey mushroom cloud. He asks me how the Ritalin is working and I tell him I take more then it says to because that’s

the only way it feels like it works. “I’m running low. I need more,” I say. “Are you better?” “I’m getting better.” “More will make it better.” “Yes. Better.” He looks at his notes in his book. This goes on for a while it seems, him saying something,

waiting for a response, then writing something down when I say something. “I have this other medication I want you to try. It’s stronger.” He keeps writing. He flips to

previous pages, scratches something out, writes something else down. This has had positive effects with some patients. fifty four Drake calls my cell from outside and says he doesn’t want to come in. He revs the engine while on the phone and not only do I hear it in the phone but also feel the rumble and sound on my spine and teeth. He’s bored and doesn’t want to be home. No one is down to do anything anymore, he says.

I’m opening the pack of Parliaments while he drives and his jaw is grinding and moving and when he finally says something, he’s hesitant and stutters and repeats himself. He’s going on about how people can never do what they want and how everyone is trapped in one kind of thinking, unable to understand things they don’t know. After every short and shallow drag he ashes his cigarettes on the window sill so that ash gets on the leather interior and on his jeans. I can’t make out his rambling though he’s saying something about me not understanding, and how no one understands and playing football is a show and everything is a big show and everyone is full of shit.

The lights on Campbell are blurry when driving over eighty. We run a red light. Almost hit a car that he yells at for being in the way. I ask him about Joy and he says she is full of shit and only needs someone and not him. Just anyone. He’s with her because she’s at least there to screw, because he has nothing better to do even though he hates the way she talks and laughs and dresses.

It’s all noise. You are here. He recalls how we would smoke cigarettes on the roof and talk about our parents and how old

people don’t know what they’re doing, and about girls, and he says we never do these things anymore, and he says we should chill more. He is rambling about how no one cares about anything, how it was all so simple. I’m not sure what to say. I light another cigarette and watch the buildings pass by while he swerves between cars. At the next red light he stops and turns down the music. He

reaches over and grabs my leg. I don’t move. I stare at the shrinking tail lights of the cars moving away down the street. The light is green and Drake tosses his cigarette out the window. He is leaning towards me and I tell him the light is green.

He says, “Fuck the light.” Cars pass by. He’s leaning across the center console grabbing my leg and trying to pull himself closer.

“Chill out, dude. Too far.” He leans back and hits his hands on the steering wheel. Then hits his forehead on the horn

and keeps it there for a while, honking constantly. He opens the door and gets out. Cars slow down and honk as they go by. I get out of the car and walk all the way around it. I’m looking in the distance thinking he ran towards a residential street nearby. The door slams and the Tahoe drives off down the street. fifty five Holly wants to take Ritalin. She says she wants to snort it. The music is low and it’s something sad and this makes everything more profound and significant.

“You don’t want to snort them.” “I want to snort them.” “Snorting Ritalin is tacky,” I say. “Ghetto people snort Ritalin.” She looks out the window into

the day. “Lets just swallow them.” “I want to snort ‘em.” “No.” “I don’t want to do any by myself.” I get a call from Mel who says Drake hit a parked car and flipped his Tahoe and went to

emergency two nights ago. His Tahoe and some Camaro with a racing stripe that he hit are both totaled.

“Are you ok?” Holly asks. “Why?” “I dunno.” We snort Ritalin. She wants to go to the bathroom and I go in with her. She says she wants to

piss by herself. She kisses me and shuts the door. I go back to the room and lay on the bed. I hear her pissing and start to grab myself. The toilet flushes and she comes out with her wig and stands in the doorway. She opens the blinds and walks around the room making sure to get close to the window every few moments, taking long steps like a stripper might take, bending over slowly, grinning at me.

“Did you hear that?” “What?” “That noise.” “It’s nothing,” I say. “I heard something.” “Don’t worry.” “Did someone come in the front door?” “There’s no one anywhere.” Downtown, we see some indie movie with some lonely midget in it. I fall asleep. She wakes

me up when the film ends and we walk along 2nd Street. People in San Jose stare at Holly like they know her.

We sit on a bench at some coffee shop and she sips her white latte and smokes her cigarette, looking at everyone who walks in. I tell her I want to have sex again. Maybe we could go to the bathroom for a quickie. She says we don’t go out enough, so I mention the part of the movie I remember, at the very beginning.

“It wasn’t even that good at that point. You fell asleep.” Things are different. Her phone rings and she picks it up. She mentions she’s with her fiancé

and laughs about this. The phone hangs up. She says, fuck that and calls someone back.

“What was that for?” She lights a cigarette. She talks for three minutes. I sip my coffee. In the phone, she mentions people I don’t know and says she’s somewhere in San Jose and that maybe she can meet up later sometime. Where are you at? And a few moments after this she hangs up. “I remember the first time I noticed you when your face was all beat up. Puffy and blue, like you just got in some fight. From that moment I liked you,” she says. “That was a while ago?” “Why haven’t you been in any fights since then?” she says. A jet flies overhead. I say something inaudible.

“I want to dance where there are lots of people. We never go out with people. I wanna move my body.”

Silence. “You there?” I mumble under my breath. “Huh?” “You hear me?” “I’m so… bored. Let’s go.”

Cars are driving and parking and doors are slamming, there is a siren, and my cell vibrates but I have no intention of looking at who is calling, though Holly asks why anyone would call at this time and I’m not sure what time it is. I say it’s probably Drake from the hospital though this is a lie. Holly doesn’t say anything for a while. I think she thinks I’m no longer interesting. I rub my elbows. Things in my vision begin shaking. I feel hot and sick. All the edges of the street and sidewalk and cars and even Holly’s face seem to dissolve and blur with everything else.

“I forgot the Ritalin in the car.” “You do that stuff too much. I think you’re hooked.” I don’t respond right away and then say Let’s have sex, right here, in the car. No one will

notice. She says she wants more caffeine or a joint and that she feels sick all the sudden. She says it must be her period coming.

We’re in the parking lot of a renovated office complex down the street from my place, smoking cigarettes. She says she wanted to get these tall rubber boots with her friend but her credit card didn’t work and a few days later her friend had the boots. She said she knew that girl had no sense of individuality.

“Who is she?” “You don’t know her.”

A tapping wakes me up. Holly is naked and frozen still, curled in a ball towards the wall. She agreed to come over but emphasized how tired she was and that she wants to go straight to sleep. The small of her back and a part of her butt are exposed from under the covers. It’s 4:27 and my cell shows I have seventeen missed calls. The tapping gets louder. I see a silhouette against the blinds of the window. Violet is mumbling something but I can’t hear her with the window closed. She looks high and full of energy, blinking and moving her mouth quickly. Holly mumbles something and covers herself with the blanket. I open the window a crack.

“I need to talk to you. Let me in.” “Leave. I’m sleeping.” “What have you been up to?”

fifty six

“I’ve been busy,” I say. “You can answer your phone.” “I’ve been doing things.” “I know.”

Beat. “They feed me airplane food here.” A forced laugh.

“Where are you? The hospital?” I say. “Yeah. I’m all messed up, man. Physical therapy might take a while.” And the conversation covers higher gas prices and a black Dinan M5 he saw in the parking lot,

and how the hospital seems empty and cold. He starts to stutter and repeat himself and he asks me a few times to visit him and I tell him I will but don’t really consider when. Drake asks when, I say we’ll see. He’s going on about some thirty year old nurse who is cute and flirts with him but that he has little energy to reciprocate. He’s repeating details about being in the hospital, about the bright lights and the soft pillows they have and the soft food he has to eat and how badly he wants a steak. A raw steak. And I’m driving and taking random turns because I’m not going to be talking to Drake once the car stops. I run a red light, see a run-over cat. I tell Drake everyone is the same and there are some cool parties coming up that he’ll miss and this is something to be disappointed about.

Drake doesn’t remember what happened before the accident. All he says he knows is that he stopped by my place before. I tell him we went to Jack in the Box and he talked to Joy for a while on his cell and then he dropped me off. He says yeah, that’s what I thought. I tell him to keep it real. He replies right back at you. And before he says anything else I say I gotta go and hang up. I buy razors, a Snickers and a pack of Parliaments with my Visa. The old woman at the register looks at what I’m buying and she says looks like it’s gonna be a crazy night. Then she chuckles like something is funny. I say right back at you. I sign the paper and take the bag and walk away. fifty seven

Maybe it was a week before he had gone. The sun’s heat was burning everything and the wind was like fire. We watched Netflix DVDs and drank 40s like in junior high. Nate vomited all over the living room, saying it was because he had eaten something, gotten food poisoning. In the pool I didn’t move around much, tried to keep from turning my head too quickly because when I did everything in my vision swayed and blurred and made me feel like I wanted to vomit. Mel kept asking me if I was ok and I told him it was the heat. Mel brought his camera and said we’d make a movie, film some conversations and edit them, or film us smoking and drinking and that it would be realistic and cool and we can talk about interesting things. Let’s do something like this tonight, he said. We’ll hang around and maybe go cruising the streets, maybe call up some people and each take turns filming it. Something cool always comes up. He turned on the camera and pointed it at us and said it will look good when it’s all put together on his computer but I said I didn’t know what it was that was so great about us sitting around in the pool all wasted in the heat.

Later in the night I was supposed to meet up with Mel and Nate and Drake, but Roman came by and Mom said to Roman that he should take out his little brother. So we went to In & Out. Roman said he felt like he missed out on me growing up, that he was too busy with stupid stuff but that since I’m old enough now I can be my own man and make my own decisions. And how our dad was not really a dad and that he wished he could have been a better dad and I replied and said you’re only my brother. And he started to say things that I didn’t understand, things about making decisions that change the way you live forever, for the better, and that sometimes it is one small thing that makes your whole world change, and that that was all it took.

Some older looking guys came in. One of them had a suit and greasy black hair. The other was dressed in a jump suit. I had to wait outside. Cell numbers were exchanged and when I asked Roman what all that was about he said business and that one day he’d tell me about it.

Driving back to the house Nate called but I didn’t pick up, let it ring the three times he called. Roman got a call a few minutes away from the house, and after said he had to stop by somewhere but that he would be quick.

We drove fast down 280. The rain started pouring hard. We picked up Anna who was waiting out in front of an apartment and was dripping wet when she got in the car. Then down 101, we got off at some small exit and drove down a few small streets where small houses were close together. We parked in a poorly lit apartment complex with a tall metal fence circling it, and then we went through a gate that automatically opened as we drove up to it. Roman had me wait in the car. After five minutes he came back and said he didn’t want me to wait in the car because it looked suspicious and

so I followed him through the complex and into a white door with the number 143 on it. A short Mexican greeted me. He looked like Cheech and he had drops of sweat on his face. Anna and Roman both kissed his hairy cheek and I shook his hand. He asked if anyone else came with us. He asked Roman if I’m cool and Roman replied he’s my little brother. They called him Uncle Sam.

Uncle Sam kept talking. He said America was the greatest country, and that anything you wanted you could get if you truly tried to get it.

He went in the other room and from there was saying something about a mechanic who was trying to screw him on a brake job. Roman said all mechanics screw you on brake jobs. This made Uncle Sam laugh.

It was a small and dark apartment with dark wooden furniture. Together, the big screen TV sat in the corner and the small lamp by the couch didn’t give off much light. Nate called my cell again but I didn’t answer and quickly put my phone on silent. Uncle Sam came out with a crystal vase and inside it was powder that he laid out on the glass table. Uncle Sam, Roman, and Anna took lines one by one with a rolled up dollar bill. Roman whispered something to Uncle Sam who seemed upset and after this Uncle Sam didn’t mind that I wrapped the powder in a tissue and swallowed it. Roman told him I have asthma which makes it hard to breathe through my nose. Roman and Uncle Sam went into the other room and Jane sat nervously, twitching her legs, and was trying to start a conversation with me about how my day was but I was more interested in the numerous pictures of nature scenes on the walls. Mountains and lakes and trees and skies.

From another room a fat white woman with red stringy hair came out and asked who I was. Jane said I was Roman’s brother. The woman started yelling, saying she doesn’t want kids coming here and doing any of their shit. The woman grabbed me and pulled me off the couch and was saying to get out of her house. She kept panting between breaths. Uncle Sam came out of the room and said I was eighteen and that I was Roman’s brother. The woman asked me if this was true. I said yes. They keep looking younger and younger, she replied and after staring at me in silence for about a minute she went back into the room. Roman looked through the door and asked Anna who seemed startled to hear her name to come in so she got up and disappeared in the other room with Uncle Sam and Roman. I stared at the big screen TV. There was a commercial with a half-naked woman and an alligator.

“Uncle Sam’s crazy wife always screams,” Anna said. “Did you see how big his TV is?” Roman asked. “I need to get gas soon.” I said maybe we should get something to drink. Some water or something. They didn’t

respond. Anna kept trying to tune in to a radio station that was not static. “We’re not going to find any place with drinks now,” Roman said, “but if you see anything we’ll

stop.” “This heat is crazy.”

fifty eight Holly and I are in a park on a blanket and here we have sex. I’m sweating and panting and this is the hardest we’ve ever done it. She says it hurts. It’s the first time she’s said this and when I slow down she tells me not to stop, to keep going. My arms are tired and the sweat from my brow is dripping on her face and she tries to catch it in her mouth. Her breath is like smoke against the air, and her skin is steaming. I come fast because she’s moaning and squirming unlike the times we had sex before and this gets me off faster. She sighs and looks away. We smoke a joint and stare at the black sky surrounding the full moon and I’m thinking of saying I don’t know anything about you.

“It’s a full moon,” I say. “The beast in you has only now come out,” she says, “and I like it.” She says hold this for a second and she hands me the joint while she puts on her jacket. “I’m

cold,” she says. I unwrap a Snickers and start eating it. She’s lying on top of me, moving up and down with

my breathing and chewing. The sweat on my brow is getting cold and the steam is coming off our

bodies less and less like smoke, like after a long ago burned out fire. She lights a cigarette and blows it at the side of my face slowly. It is warm.

“Why don’t you fuck me like that more often?” fifty nine He asks how everything is and I tell him I have a dream where crowds of people are running, where streets are on fire but that that is all I remember. Maybe it is not even a dream.

“What do you think this means?” “It could mean many things,” I say. “Have you watched any disturbing movies lately? Maybe read any Stephen King books or

something?” “We must have had this conversation before. I feel like this is nothing new here,” I say and

look at him but he doesn’t seem to agree. “I’m living in this world, is that not enough?” But it seems he doesn’t hear this.

“Do you play video games?” he says. “Why doesn’t everyone think like you?” “You’re supposed to tell me that.”

Beat. “It must be the movies. I like disturbing movies. You’re right, it is probably nothing more,” I

say but don’t think he picks up on the sarcasm because he simply nods at this response with self appraisal.

He asks how everything is at home. “In relation to everything else, things are normal.” “Are things ok with your parents?” “Things are normal in relation to everything else,” I say. “Have I told you this before?” “What do you mean?” he says. There is no progress here. “What is it you want to do?” he asks. “Is this some kind of test?” He says, “Some kind of test? What do you mean?” I am about to say something but don’t let any words come out. “What makes you think things are the way you say they are?” He writes notes into a

notebook. I can tell he is staring at me for a long moment as though he’s about to say something but I’m looking at the shadows in the room and somehow this feels strange. “How do you feel after the medication?”

I’m scratching the tops of my hands then stop and grab the armrests of the chair. “If you don’t confront these issues, you’ll have trouble communicating later.” The shadows continue to shift. “Did you draw me a picture?” he asks. I say what and look away from the corner of the room. “You don’t remember?” “Did you say this before?” I notice my knees are shaking. Heat moves through my chest and

head. “What were you saying?” Drops of sweat are forming on my brow. “I said you’re not going to have healthy relationships with people because of the way things

are.” And before he can finish I get up and leave.

sixty

Driving up a quarter mile driveway, somewhere in Palo Alto, we get here. Men and women kiss her cheeks as we walk in. Chandeliers hang from vaulted ceilings, columns and arches separate rooms. Glass walls, black and grey marble. A young woman in a tuxedo hands us champagne. Older men in suits and ties. We make a toast to a guy named Almo. Holly leaves to talk with a tall Italian-looking guy with long and pointy shoes. I finish my champagne and walk towards the grand piano where there is wine and cheese on a silver platter. I’m wearing ripped blue Diesel jeans, a hole on the thigh.

A couple of guys in their thirties are standing nearby, having a conversation. They have wine glasses in their hands. One, with bleached and spiked hair and a loud orange tie, is talking about the decline of quality in Hollywood films, the loss of the human element in art today, the rise of homemade video clips. The other is nodding and sipping his wine. He keeps glancing towards me. This guy is wearing Ray Bans. Another guy with neatly trimmed hair along his jaw line walks up to them. He gives his critique on the Bush administration’s failure to unite a hesitant American people. I’m watching them talk for a while now, occasionally looking away and grabbing at the cheese on the platter, sipping champagne. The Ray Ban guy walks up to me and asks for a smoke. I pull out a smoke and give it to him, and he nods so we go smoke outside. The other two guys follow. The facial hair guy pulls out a metal case with cigarettes and pulls out two, one for the other guy and one for himself.

“Who do you know here?” “Holly,” I say. “You know Holly?” “Holly? No.” “Never met any Holly. Is she new?” “There.” I point to her. “Oh, Angela. Yeah. She’s great,” facial hair guy says. “No kidding,” the guy with the Ray Bans says. “You know her, too?” They all laugh. “It’s hard not to know her. She is coming up, really making a name for herself here after such

a short time.” He smiles, tapping his cigarette. “It’ll take a little more time for her to get really big.” “Yeah but for now she has an audience and it is growing. She’s the talk of the underground

scene.” “Faith. There is a girl you’d like to know. She started off kinda like Angela and moved her way

up. A real team player now. You know which Faith, right?” The facial hair guy says. “She’s going to do a twelve guy ATM gangbang in just a few days, a real big feat in her career.”

“Definitely a big step forward career wise.” I take a drag and nod. “I think she might be here.” “No, she had a shoot in San Fernando, might not make it here actually,” one guy says. The

other guy leans in to this guy’s ear and whispers so I can’t hear. They both laugh. “So are you an actor or what?” “Not really. No,” I say. “So what are you doing here?” “Just hanging out. Thought I’d check things out.” They talk amongst themselves until their smokes are done. The guy with the facial hair and

the guy with the bleached hair walk off. The guy with Ray Bans waits for them to walk off a few steps. “Listen kid, I like how you look. I’d love to see your cock in action sometime. You got a

specific style.” He gives me a business card. “Get a hold of me, when you’re ready.” He puts his hands on my chest and pats it. “I’ll see you around.” The card reads erotic filmmaker and producer. Holly has on a red skirt and a fuzzy looking 50’s sweater that shows her waist and cleavage. In the car on the way here she was fixing her hair the whole time, not saying much. Now she’s going on about how it’s so great to see all these bright and ambitious people, everyone dressed up, the DJ playing by the pool. She is talking fast. Talking about a girl she saw here who looks like Neve Campbell. Usually, she’s so busy with photo shoots and modeling that we never see each other Holly says.

“We call her Neb,” she says. Beat.

“I haven’t done any coke yet.” Pause. “Have you?” I shake my head side to side and the word no just barely comes out. People approach Holly

and me. A young Asian guy in a trench coat puts his arm around Holly. He asks her what her next

move is. Holly starts talking about how she is going to LA. There’s opportunity there for a girl like you, an older woman with fake breasts says from behind me.

“You have to get well-connected,” the woman says and laughs. The suits and ties laugh. Some of them whisper to each other while looking at Holly. There are girls in the bathroom wearing short skirts and high heels and they are doing lines on the marble counter. They give me a line, they say here you take this.

“To get you up,” one girl says. “Because you look out of this world, sweetie,” another says.

Beat. “I’ve done much better coke than this,” the girl with the nicest legs says. “Is there meth at this party?” She looks at me. “One guy here has hash from Europe. He just got back. France, I think.” “His name’s France?” “It’s Almo. He’s from France, Paris, I think.” “I know his name,” the blond says. “That’s the guy with the huge cock?” She has the faucet

running, wets her fingers, tilts her head back and puts water in her nostrils and sniffs hard. “Sweetie, they all have big cocks here.” “Isn’t this his house?” “It’s Renaldo’s. Renaldo can get you anything you want.” “I want meth.” “I think the guy in the grey suit keeps looking at me.” “Fuck him, why doncha?” says the brunette, blowing her nose. “I was thinking of it.” “He looks Italian. Or Arab.” “You’ll be jealous.” “I know. Try him.” “I’ll let you have him… after I’m done.” They all laugh. Without looking at me they give me

one more line. My fingers are numb. I can’t feel my face. Today the wind has stopped. The swimming pool reflects on the faces of the pretty girls and the businessmen. Two Latino guys are standing at the turn tables and mixing electronic sounds with jazz. A rotating sphere is spinning and flashes of color are shooting out and lighting up the people nearby, the building, the pool, all with different colors. I haven’t seen Holly since a few drinks ago. The gin I’m drinking is almost done and it hasn’t washed away the coke taste in my throat. There are girls swimming topless. I watch a skinny girl get out of the pool, walk across the patio area on her tip toes and sit at the makeshift straw bar. A breeze comes and goes. When she moves her ribs become visible, then disappear. Her breasts are small and white. She leans over the bar and says something to the bartender who then gives her a cigarette and lights it before she gives him a kiss on the cheek. She looks around and takes three fast drags. A muscular guy in a white tank top and black slacks sits next to her. He whispers something into her ear and she giggles and puts her arm on his neck. He orders two drinks and stands behind her, rubbing his crotch against her back, whispering something in her ear. He pulls out his cock and rubs it against her back. The girl, smoking and drinking and laughing, keeps turning her head from side to side and smiling at everyone that passes by. I toss the cigarette in the grass and go inside and pass the living room and kitchen and dining room where there are people talking, laughing, drinking, some are staring at me silently.

I ask the Italian-looking guy if he has seen Holly and I ask the older woman with fake breasts. The guy with Ray Bans overhears me and says don’t you worry about these lovely ladies here. They can handle themselves before I even ask him. Another girl hears this and laughs. She was right here. She just left. You said Honey right? Honey?

I look in a few rooms in the long hallway. One is locked and after a few minutes of knocking on the engraved door a skinny kid of about 13 years with no shirt on who I haven’t seen before opens the door. Inside the dark room I see men in suits leaning back on couches and young boys and girls dancing and snorting powder off a low glass table in the center of the room. Dark eyes shine in the blackness.

In the next room people are licking each others faces and smoking a pipe. I don’t know what else because there is only faint candle light illuminating the shadowy figures. Another room is locked, only a heat escapes from beneath the door. The handle, curved and slippery. I walk to the room at the end of the hall and open the door. People touching and kissing. Candles flicker like there is wind and a

few lamps are giving off orange and yellow light from the corners of the room. Holly is sitting on a bed and the flickering of the flames makes her face shift and change as she kisses the girl who might look like Neve Campbell. A young black kid is behind Holly with his hands under her shirt. He is sucking on her neck. Her eyes are closed and her head is rolling around doing circles, and then changing directions. Her body shifts and she jerks forward, then back quickly. I stand in the doorway, watching for what seems like a couple of minutes. The sour taste in my throat is more noticeable. I try to swallow it. Nothing. A skinny blond kid with a gas mask, wearing only tight swim trunks pushes by me and goes into the room, sits down and pulls out a bag from his shorts. He looks up at me in the doorway for a while. He says who is this? through the mask. The girl who might look like Neve Campbell looks up at me and says close the damn door. Holly doesn’t look up, doesn’t see me. The black kid behind Holly says to shut the door. The bathroom door in the room opens and out comes the guy with the bleached blond hair, wearing the suit. He has a digital camera in his hand. He says, we should talk later, now is not good. I don’t say anything and stand there in the doorway, looking at him as he winks and tilts his head at me, looking from my head to my feet, and then pushes me out of the room. Closing the door.

sixty one What was that again?

We stop at an ATM. She stays inside. The heater is on full blast. A wind moves around the car picking up leaves. It looks like it might rain. The street is empty and the headlights guide us forward. A cat runs across the street. I swerve to the left and break hard. Holly sucks air in through her teeth. We are stopped in the middle of Wolfe Road, under the Valco overpass.

“I only hope we didn’t hit it,” she says. I say, “I don’t know.”

Beat. “Let’s just keep going,” she says. I put the stick shift in first and slowly accelerate. She lights a cigarette and turns up the

music. Just as we park and I turn off the car in the lot she finishes the smoke. I look under the car and she says forget it, it’s better not to know. We go in and sit down and wait for the waiter.

“We’re never really together,” she says. I’m not saying anything. I’m watching a family of people leaving the restaurant. A kid with a

birthday hat on his head, holding a balloon. “Everything is a distraction.” She scans the menu, flipping pages. “You know?”

Silence. “Is this because I couldn’t get hash,” I say. “Are you ordering a margarita? I wanna get drunk.” “I dunno.” “Order one and give it to me.” The waiters are screaming and singing happy birthday a few tables away. “What?” “Everyone was born on this day.” She looks at me and says something. “I said…” They’re still screaming. “Nevermind.” A waiter with a shaved head walks by. Holly looks up at him then back down at the menu. I

look back at the menu and turn a page. A few minutes later another waiter comes to take our order. I’m about to say the order when

Holly insists she can order for herself and that she can take care of herself, that is what she says. She makes this clear so that the waiter hears this and smiles at her.

She tells me about the girl that looks like Neve Campbell from the party. They met in a coffee shop just after Holly moved here. It was my second or third day here, she says. She was so nice, saying that I’m so pretty and that we should be friends and that she can introduce me to lots of cool people, she says. From a few tables away I hear: another successful year in information technology.

“We might go out sometime.” “Where to?” “I dunno. Just go out.” A pause. “She likes to go out with groups of people.” I mention how she and I should drive to Santa Cruz next weekend. She shrugs and says the

weather is getting worse. My cell vibrates. It’s Violet and I don’t answer. Holly pretends she didn’t notice and pulls her phone out of her bag and looks at it, puts it on the table. She is ripping her napkin into pieces and stacking it in a pile. What are you doing? I say. She scatters the pile around the table and looks at her phone.

We eat and don’t say anything for a while and although the cheers and toasts to good health and fortune at the next table have calmed down there is still a low hum of talking throughout. From the kitchen a bell rings every few moments and plates bang against metal. Forks against plates. Chewing. Footsteps. I think Holly asks me something about school. I begin talking about Mr Ellis’s class and how I haven’t been at school for over a few days.

“Let’s not talk about school when we don’t have to,” she says. The waiter with the shaved head walks by and smiles at Holly. She tries not to notice. She

mentions something about her friends at the party. She talks about them for a while. It’s getting hard to focus. She says her friends are so interesting and everyone there has interesting lives and she wishes that her life could be more interesting. Her face is in her plate and her eyes tilt up. She is chewing her bloody steak, leaning over it and trying to bite off a small piece that is not so easy to bite off. I order another martini for her and a beer for myself. I drink the beer quickly and about halfway through it go to the bathroom where I pop two of the new pills and drink it down with water from the faucet. The pills are the same shape as the Ritalins, only they’re a yellowish color. In soapsuds on the mirror it reads you suck cock. I wash my hands, thoroughly getting soap suds all over the tops and bottoms and in between my fingers. The sensor of the electric heater doesn’t work and doesn’t blow hot air or any air at all.

Holly is talking to the shaved headed waiter. Just as I sit he tells Holly, all right, I’ll be seeing you. The bill is on the table. She takes a gulp of her martini.

“Says he’s seen me somewhere.” I finish my beer and wave down our waiter and give him my Visa. He walks off. Holly pulls out

her Discover card and holds it. “Did you want me to pay?” she says. She puts her card back in her bag, looks at her phone,

and finishes her martini. sixty two Subject: (none) hey lover, been thinking of you lately. your not like most guys. sometimes i get the idea you dont like me and that maybe you get sick of me but then i imagine that it’s all in my head because when we’re together i feel like everything is good. i like it when you are rough. it makes me feel like a woman. so many guys in highschool are so immature and dont know how to take charge with girls. They dont know how to be men. theyre so insecure and it’s really so sad people are so caught up with immature things and crushes and all that stuff. You are different. We really dont know each other but really no one knows who i am. there is a lot i haven’t told you yet. but you probably know the most about me of anyone i met here so far here. i have many lives and it’s fun. but with you i feel that it is somehow the most real, and pure and raw. And I dont want to tell you what school i go to. It doest matter anyway. But your school is not that far for me. Maybe we even know the same people. anyway school doesnt matter. i also dont want you to know where i live. i like our random meetings in random places. Oh and i took more pictures so you can see my ‘sweet ass’. Haha. when will I see you again? I luv your fat cock and balls J Angela

“It’s from the freaky chick I told you about,” he says. I scroll down, see pictures of Holly naked with her legs spread and her cunt all dry and pink. Nate says, “This girl likes to fuck in all the weirdest public places. I told you.”

Holly is leaning forward with her head tilted up and lips puckered, her arms are pressed up in front of her pushing up her palm sized breasts. She’s pushing a glass dildo into her cunt. I scroll down more. She looks like she just got out of the shower, her hair is wet, and a hand coming into the frame is handing her a towel. Her dripping leg is bent and propped up against a chair, her toes are pointed and her tongue is sticking out showing the shiny metal stud. Her messy room, the boxes scattered, the empty jug of Carlo Rossi, the Rolling Stone magazine, red cups in the background.

“Not bad, ain't she? I have the really fucked up hardcore pics in another folder. I’ll show you later – I mean fucking nasty. This girl knows no bounds.”

Nate has jeans on and is shirtless so I see his ribs showing under his skin. “You saw the other pictures I sent you, right?” he says.

I’m pulling out a cigarette and a lighter. He is putting on a shirt and jacket. “She’s not the best but she’s all right. Though she really does try to give good head.” “What else is she into?” I say. “Before we met up, she said, ‘What kinda things should I bring?’ and I was like, ‘what?’” He’s

in the kitchen pouring milk and saying this. “And?” “She wanted to bring toys, you know, cuffs, beads, dildos – this chick is a freak. I mean she

loves to eat my ass and rub her come all over her face and in her hair. It’s really quite a skill. But she didn’t know how to give a BJ, though. Haha. Weird. I told her how to cup my balls and lick my nuts and this and that, you know, explained the precision work involved. And it’s like she practiced somewhere on someone or something because the next fews time it was like another girl down there.”

I’ve been scratching my neck for a while. I stop. Nate pulls out a box from his desk and takes a joint, carefully putting the box back. I put my jacket on and grab my backpack and we walk out the door. The air is cool outside. The sky is cloudy. The wind is steady and constant. Drops of water from the sky hit my face. Drops gather on my car. We get in and I turn the windshield wipers on, smearing the water and we drive off.

My cell vibrates and it’s Holly. She calls a few times and I don’t answer. Nate doesn’t seem to notice. I turn off my cell. It seems like we drive for some time with no words and no contact, and we run three red lights. At a stop I reach to the backseat and take the pills from my backpack and gather spit in my mouth and put the pills on my tongue and swallow. A cop comes up behind us, I tell Nate to put the joint out. He says it looks like a cigarette and keeps smoking. I say louder, put the fucking thing out. He says it’s fine, don’t trip. I grab the joint and swerve into the left lane and flick the joint to the center divide. The cop turns on the sirens and signals us to pull over. Nate turns down the radio and opens the window and turns the fan on to full blast as I pull in to a side street and stop. In the rearview I see two cops sitting in the car and one of them is probably checking up my plate in his computer as the other one is saying something and staring at me. It smells like weed and that his eyes are really red. I tell him this. Shut the fuck up and be cool he says calmly. I’m not sure what is happening because we are just sitting in the car with the fan blowing and the cops behind us. The driver’s side door opens and he gets out. The other cop says something. The door closes, the sirens go on and the cop car passes us by. Nate says what a waste of a perfectly good joint. A billboard passes my view. It is new, maybe it’s been new for a while, and it does not read you are here anymore, it’s a Mazda commercial, and it’s of the new Mazda RX8. I park and take the car keys with me. I buy a pack of smokes in 7-11 and light one smoke before I get in the car. I give the lit cigarette to Nate and he takes it without words and smokes it. I pull one more cigarette out and light it for myself. We smoke and drive and I drop him off at Lynbrook. I pass Cupertino and the heavy school traffic and all the people walking by on their way to class slowly and tragically and pointlessly. Toss the cigarette out the window and I drive and drive, feeling tightness in my gut and a nauseating spinning in my head, until I pull over, open the door, and gag over the street but nothing comes out except spit. sixty three

The farther we run down the street, away from the yellow spots of light, everything becomes darker and the people around me begin to fade away until we reach another spot of yellow light that intensifies deeper in the smoke. Young bodies are crowded up against me and in front of me, these sweaty and hot bodies all running in one direction, for brief moments I see they have no faces. No mouths or eyes, or noses, only bumps where facial features should be. I know some of them, can distinguish or recall them from passing moments. The lady from the grocery store. The kid with the chain. The cops. Becca. Drake. The man from the grocery store. Strangers from trains. I can tell it is them by their hair and their heights and clothes, and I just know it’s them. I try to lift my hand to feel my face, to feel that I have eyes and a mouth but I’m stuck. Nudged between tightly packed bodies carrying me away. My back is towards where everyone is running. The smoke blows and clears away enough for me to see fires along the street and buildings in ruin and people jumping from buildings, everything collapsing.

The street feels less solid. It’s harder to run but everyone keeps running on this unstable ground. I feel soft shapes and lumps, and when I look down in between the shoulders and elbows and knees of bodies all moving around me, carrying me somewhere, I see bodies disfigured and contorted. I see hands and arms outstretched and reaching. I see crooked and quivering fingers, knees curled up to necks, legs and arms bent awkwardly, dragging and dangling under all the weight, and all I want to do is feel my face. It is five and dark out when I wake up. sixty four Nate is standing in front of the door where a hand written sign reads Serving San Jose for 30 years We’ll miss you. Above this a large banner reads coming soon Starbucks Coffee. The first thing Nate says is:

“Do you know where my black polo shirt is?” I don’t know. I walk up to the window and inside the diner there are empty booths, the tables and chairs are

gone, the lights are off, and a few empty coffee pots sit on the counter. We walk to his Jetta and light our cigarettes.

“I thought you’re getting a GTI or Passat.” “I got this instead.” He says 7-11 didn’t have Marlboro Reds for the first time. He’s smoking Lucky Strikes and he

says he hates them. The fact that he got the new Jetta doesn’t seem to impress him. The moon reflects off the black hood and then disappears as clouds roll by. He says his parents kept giving him the run around so now that he finally got the car it’s more relieving than impressive. He talks about the turbo he might put in, the carbon fiber hood, xenon headlights, sway bars, low profile tires, systems, subs, the things he needs. His voice trails off. We get in the car and drive up the street and the only thing we find is Starbucks so we park.

It’s crowded. The blending of people’s chatter and whistling steam from the coffee machines and sugar packets ripping open all sound like an industrial factory. I look at my hands shaking. We wait silently in line for seven minutes and when I get my coffee, it’s hot and burns my lips and it tastes like coal. We go outside and Nate says what’s up to some people smoking cigarettes and drinking from paper cups, wearing puffy, colorful jackets. Two guys and a girl say what’s up to me but they don’t look familiar and I don’t recall where from or how I might know them. We sit down on a planter just by the parking lot because all the seats are taken. “We should have a threesome. This freak Angela and you and me,” he says.

I keep thinking about the pills I dropped down the drain when shaving this morning, pills that could be salvaged if I take apart the pipes under the sink. If I ration out three a day I will have enough to last me six days. The inside of my mouth is dry and my tongue sticks to the top of my mouth. I take a sip of coffee. “Do you know her?” I say and light a cigarette.

“I told you about those toys she wanted to bring. When we met I asked what she wanted to do. She said anything I wanted is ok with her. We went to my place. My parents were at the restaurant.”

“But do you know her? What she is thinking?” “Are you serious?” He stops. “It doesn’t matter if I know her, who really knows anybody, but I

do know that she really wants kinky sexual pleasure. And I am totally ok with that.” I take a large gulp of the coffee and drag on my cigarette and don’t bother saying anything.

Nate is talking about how school will be out in a couple of weeks and everyone has been talking about parties and road trips. I tell him I am paying Dan to finish my overdue papers on the Vietnam War and another English paper about some existential author.

I hear keys typing quickly. Pause. I send a text message to Holly saying I miss her. I suggest we get high and Nate says he can arrange that. Peck walks up with a girl who is introduced as Janette. Janette doesn’t say anything and looks at the ground. Her hair is in a pony tail and her jacket is pink and too big on her. Peck starts saying how it’s a coincidence to see us here on this day. Peck’s nose is red compared to the pale tint of his face. His lips are chapped and when he talks foam-like saliva builds up in the corners of his mouth. I take a drag of my smoke. Peck gives us props. Nate makes no effort to acknowledge Peck. Peck looks down at his bright white shoes, rolls his ankle to see the profile of his foot. Janette looks away quickly after her and I make eye contact, and her pony tail swings side to side and it looks soft and shiny and on her face she has no make up except on her lips where she has a slippery gloss that is reflecting the whole Starbucks sign from up above. Nate cranes his neck to look at Janette standing behind Peck. Pecks looks back up, grabs Jeanette’s hand and says he’ll talk to us later and walks off.

“Lets smoke a bowl, do something,” I say. The table keeps rocking whenever weight is put on it. I move the paper cup of burned coffee

to the edge of the table and when Nate leans back in his chair, taking his arms off the table, the coffee falls and splashes on the guy in a jogging suit typing on a laptop at the table next to us. He looks at Nate and me. Nate says what? The guy doesn’t say anything and wipes his pants off with a napkin and turns back to his laptop. Nate laughs and says it’s my stubble and hair that intimidated him. Nate’s cell rings and he picks up. I’m guessing it’s a girl by the way he is talking slow and calm. He talks for a few minutes. I hear typing. The table’s metal legs clink, back and forth.

I remember this: Why don’t you fuck me like that more often. There are no new text messages on my phone and that’s when it hits me that the text I sent sounded desperate and weak.

“So what’s crackin'?” Peck sits down, alone. “You know what, today is a great day.” “Indeed. A day of change,” says Nate, hanging up. Peck looks up at the clouded sky. Although the past few days have been calm the forecast

says it will get worse each day. Nate lights another cigarette. “Sometimes everything can be so dope, you know?” Peck lights a smoke. “I bought an eighth

of primo buds with money I worked hard for.” “Where’s your girlfriend?” Nate says. “This bud is sticky and covered with crystals, intertwined with multi-colored…” “She left so fast?” Nate says. “We must have scared her.” “She’s not my girlfriend. She’s just a girl. In the car.” Peck’s hands move fast with each word.

His eyes are large and sticking out of his head more than usual. He looks up at the sky and scans back at Nate and me.

“It’s cool, Peck. No stress.” Nate says and takes a long and calm drag. Beat.

“My guy, I mean this guy’s selling quantity. He also sells knives. He makes great money doing this. So I’m on my third set. I probably won’t make money on those but the more hours I put in the more I will be able to make. You guys should sell knives a few days a week. You boys need to make some dollar bills. So then you could do something with that little VW of yours, Nate.

“Don’t worry about my VW. You worry about yourself,” Nate says. “So anyone need quality cooking knives?” “Look there. That cloud looks like an ostrich.” Nate looks up. Peck brushes off his shoes,

looking up at the clouds. “Holly told me to tell her phone is broken which is why she hasn’t been around,” Peck says to

me.

sixty five

“We need to see more, experience more. We shouldn’t limit ourselves like this.” She pauses. “You don’t need me. You need someone.”

She mentions her still being new at school and how she doesn’t want to close herself off from other people because of obligations to me. I tell her this is bullshit and she says she needs to smoke a cigarette. I ask if it is about the text I sent her and she replied with what do you mean?

I hear cars drive by, people walking and chatting. She is leaning on one hip and one knee is bent. She has deep set puffy eyes and her hair is long and stringy and looks sweaty. She pulls out a smoke and motions it my way and I don’t grab it for a few seconds, and when I do I hold it and nod when she holds up the lighter and it is as if me not smoking her cigarette is a clear sign that things have changed and she must know this as well because she has this confused and thoughtful look on her face.

“You have a website,” I say. She looks at the lighter and flicks it a few times, the flint scratching and grinding.

“I’m a model,” she says, lighting her smoke. We sit on the curb. I’m rolling the cigarette between my fingers.

“It doesn’t matter,” She says. “Why did I not find out about this from you?” “What else did you not find out from me? Really, these things don’t matter. This is just what I

do and not who I am. But we’re late for this conversation and…” She takes a drag. “Actually, on to a lighter matter, what would you say about a threesome? I

have this friend who would really like to see me get fucked and I thought that someone could be you.” “I know about this.” “I would not just ask anyone, you know,” she says and stares at the ground. The hooks holding up the flag bang against the pole, the sound vibrates in my ears, as the

wind picks up from the west. The stars and stripes wave almost above us. Holly’s face is long and distorted the more I stare at it. She has lines under her eyes and around her mouth. She’s holding in a large drag of smoke. She keeps it inside and lets nothing out. I watch this, her in this way leaning on her arms behind her, and the rips in her jeans are bigger than I remember. A car with loud dance music bumping speeds down the street and Holly takes a big breath.

“I never felt it and I never saw it and that’s why it’s not it.” She takes a long drag from her cigarette. “I need more. I need everything.” She inhales air after the drag. “I should have told you this but I thought it was felt both ways.” She says that sex with me was sweet. And I don’t know what this means. “Anyways, I’m saying too much. You’re a big boy and you’ll do fine.”

I don’t say anything. The silence persists. “In two weeks I’ll be in LA. I’m moving out of my mom’s place.” “And school,” I say. “I have to think about my future. There are people who want to see me succeed, who will help

me to succeed. I can’t let them down.” There is a pause that settles in this moment, a pause that sharpens all the previous moments,

the moments that only now seem to have been so blurry and fragmented and when I picture them I realize they were nothing.

“Say something,” she says. I light the cigarette in my hand. She is now standing over me and I’m still on the curb.

“The wind will be back stronger,” I say. Beat.

“You should have met me before. Because now is not a good time. If only you got to me before I wanted everything.” She grabs my hand and pulls me up so that we’re both standing. “Ok, so listen, if you are up for that proposition you know how to get a hold of me. Actually, my phone number changed so…”

“I’m not going to school today,” I hear myself say. “Why are you so cold? You think warmth will come from someone else but it’s you that is

cold.” She looks at me and her face leans in to my shoulder. The wind picks up and lifts leaves and dirt around us.

“I hope we can...” A leaf hits my face so that I flinch and move away as she says something.

I could say something meaningful here. sixty six He was gone. From down the hall I heard my father’s heavy breathing and sighing about the house late that night. The next morning I smelled coffee and heard footsteps dragging against the hardwood. What I noticed was different this time, more pronounced and symbolic, was that when the cupboards opened they weren’t slammed shut out of mindless haste or even carefully pressed shut, they were simply left to fall and close under their own weight. And the sound of a cup against the counter was less precise than usual, could be heard rolling on its edge until it stopped. When the phone rang my mom didn’t pick it up. It kept ringing. The weight of her footsteps would shift, rather shuffle, and occasionally move a few steps at a time and this would cause the floor to creak. After those first few days had passed we talked but it was forced; asking about my day and homework, what I wanted for dinner, what kind of ice-cream I wanted from the store, questions that before might have sounded typical and expected. And I would reply with it’s better than normal, and I’d repeat something I had heard that day in school, or I would say I want chicken and broccoli for dinner, and that I haven’t had pecan pie in a while, or just however else to respond to make it seem as though everything was in place and that the fact that Roman had been gone for already three weeks and that only the day before the Police told us they don’t know what to do but that they will wait and listen and let us know about anything that comes up. Sometimes people just disappear into thin air and no one ever knows what happened, the cop said the night before when he showed up and refused to come in for coffee. He stood in the door until his walkie-talkie made a sound and he left. sixty seven The sky’s been overcast for a few days. My mom complained that the jug of water for the plants froze during the night. Under the overpass on Stevens Creek a homeless man and a woman lie on the sidewalk motionless. A few people standing over them uncertain. A blanket almost covers their whole bodies except I see his pale and hairy face, slightly agape. The trees along Stevens Creek don’t give off any shadows under the diffused light from the clouds. There are no leaves on their branches that hang and fork off from the trunk, each time less and less, gradually turning into nothing else to fork off from. Mel and Zack and Matsuko have some ideas for snowboarding and drinking in Tahoe or a drive to LA and party on Sunset. Zack knows somebody who has an apartment and can get uncut Bolivian coke for 80 a ball and this makes Matsuko and Mel excited. Warm air is coming from above the door. The cafeteria smells like french-fries.

I’m drinking a stale coffee, noticing how everyone’s feet nearly form a circle. Zack’s wearing the same grey Pumas Mel’s wearing. They’re talking about Dan’s parents leaving somewhere for vacation. The house will be empty for a whole two weeks and Zack says something about this but – I’m standing and drinking my coffee, holding my cigarettes in my jacket pocket – I’m looking down, and I hear fryers sizzling and popping louder and louder and then settling to a consistent tone, and water is running and a scream-like laugh breaks this sound, followed by a ring. A girl says the burritos are good today. A pause. She said it in Econ. A chair is pulled out, scraping the ground. She wasn’t even there. A coke can lands at the base of the machine and two coins are ejected into the dispenser.

“Where’s Nate?” “I dunno.” “Couldn’t get a ride?” “He get that Passat?” “Supposed to be a while ago.” “I haven’t done… in a while… hash.” “Jetta. It’s nice.” “No kidding. Been a while.” “He’s getting a chip and everything, I heard.” “Heard about that house that was broken into and everyone murdered?” “When’s Drake getting out of the hospital?” “Bullshit.”

“He’ll be out soon.” “I talked to Smith…” “They were cut up with cooking knives.” “Yeah, and?” “He’ll stay in SB for the break and we can party there if we want.” “It’s like a trend or something.” “Serious.” “You mean these knives?” “They found PCP in Drake’s blood.” “Gotta lighter?”

sixty eight They all shake his hand on the way out. A shake, thanks and then see you. I put my hand up. It takes longer than any previous shake. Mr Ellis holds my hand firmly so that I can’t let go right away, moving it up and down, looking into my face. He says to me:

Find something good and keep on going after it. Make it yours. I see it in you. You just have to focus on it.

I pull my hand back with force and I walk to the parking lot and light a cigarette by my car and stand against the passenger side door, my legs are shaking. The smoke from my cigarette is darting to the left with the wind. I take three drags and then unlock my car and pull out the pills from the glove box. I take out a pill and swallow it, taking a drag right after. The smoke is thick and rolls down my throat and it rolls off the cigarette sideways into the air and then wildly darts into another direction and begins up. I put the orange bottle in my backpack and close the car. Matt is leaning against his jeep a few cars away. He nods.

“In Europe people are dying on the streets from the cold. Weather has been all fucked up, everywhere. It’s like another ice age but this time it has been thrown on us with no preparation or forewarning and soon it will make its way here, and there is nothing we can do but wait. And in other places there is heat that has never shown itself before, hot and blistering heat, and old people and kids are dying and everyone is just turning their heads like this is something that is supposed to be happening, like everything is okay and normal.” He says this while looking across the street, and he takes a drag of his smoke. I don’t respond and only look at him looking down the street. Everyone is somewhere else.

I take a drag. He says these semesters start and end the same every year. No big deal.

I pick up a newspaper next to the check out counter and read about how a seven year old

girl’s body has finally been found after a few weeks, how her body was cut up in a frozen over river in Minnesota. The letters come in and out of focus. A headline reads Corporation Guilty of Embezzling Millions. Cooking Knife Killer Robbers, reads another article, and they advise that people lock their doors and later on the article reads that these cooking knives have all been sold by a pyramid structured group of traveling knife sellers who attract young people with high salaries. The article’s words are becoming smaller and harder to read. I can’t make out any letters. I try to focus my eyes harder, squinting, putting my face closer to the paper but as the words gradually begin to take shape and sharpness the letters begin spilling together on the paper, moving together slowly creating new letters and words, until it looks like random black scribbles. The newspaper shakes in my hands. The lady at the counter looks up at me from the computer. I hear my teeth grinding. I walk over to a desk and look through my backpack, first in the small pockets where my pills are and then in the middle pocket where I find my smokes and see I have two left. I wipe sweat off my forehead. The lady at the counter looks away when I look in her direction.

sixty nine I’m holding my cell and see a missed call from Kate. I see Nate’s number light up on the screen and then the light slowly fades away. On the wet street ahead there are reflections of houses and cars and the night sky. I don’t see the moon. Kate leaves a message. In it she tells me she remembers the party earlier this semester and how since then she hasn’t seen me much. She says she wants me to call her this break because she will be house sitting and will be bored and after I listen to the message three times I then delete it.

The wind rips and tethers at the air. A dog is barking in the distance. Silhouettes move across the side of the house and Ante’s window. One guy in a hooded sweat shirt and another in a baseball cap. The blinds rise and Nate opens the window and leans out. They talk for a few minutes. Their hands exchange something. One of the guys leans against the wall with his straightened arm. The other guy opens his backpack and has Nate look in it. Nate reaches in and pulls back his hand, holding what looks like a CD. They shake each other’s hands. The hood and hat leave. The window closes. An oldies song is playing on the radio. I tap my fingers on the wheel, holding a smoke. I’m holding my cell in the other. I smoke half the cigarette and throw it out the window. I dial 911 and give Nate's address, I tell the operator I heard a window breaking and saw somebody suspicious with a hood, snooping outside some houses. I repeat that they were some guys with hooded sweatshirts. I get out the car and walk through the wind that tethers hard at my clothes and down the street I grab a rock from a neatly mowed front lawn with a bed of colorful flowers just to the side. I get close to the driveway where Nate’s Jetta is parked and I throw the rock at the back window. The window cracks in one spot and fans out in lines but is still held together. The alarm sounds off and the car’s lights begin blinking. Lights begin turning on in front of neighbors’ doors. I see people looking out of windows. Families and children and older people gathered in windows, looking on the street and at me as I stand and feel my chest lifting and then easing back down, like this over and over. The sound of air rushing in and out of my nose echoes in my head. The front door of the house opens. Nate is standing in the doorway. I stand for a while, the alarm of the car sounding, neighbors now opening doors, and walking out on their driveways and lawns. I give Nate the finger. He only stands there. seventy The lights are dense in the center and as they go out they become sparse and fade until it is only darkness and an occasional small flickering light that I can see. There is no sky. The engines hum and shift. I’m drawing lines with a black pen on a full page advertisement of an in-flight magazine. I don’t know what the ad is for. I make horizontal and diagonal lines all overlapping each other, getting gradually farther away from the point where I started. Outside of that starting point I draw circles and rectangles of varying sizes, some overlapping each other. I’m listening to some jazz station coming through the plane’s radio channels. The lines I draw are not straight, but shake and vibrate. I look at my hand and see it is shaking sporadically. The guy next to me keeps turning his head to look at me. He has emptied three whiskies and is now drinking gin. I lean back and only with my eyes look out the window. Then slowly move my eyes to look at him once. He is looking at me. He has uneven facial hair along his chin and neck. His baseball cap has an orange O on it. He nods. From an orange case of pills, similar to mine, he pulls out a red pill, puts it in his mouth, and drinks it down with the gin. “No need to stay up for so long. I’ll be out in just a few.” He laughs. I draw uneven lines.

“Is that some graph or something?” he says. “It’s just scribbles.”

“You’re an illustrator or something?” he says. Beat.

“This is my fiancé.” He shows me a picture in his phone of a woman in her 30’s with long blond hair but when I look closely I see she has wrinkles near her eyes and mouth like she has in some ways lived longer than her 30 some years. She is smiling and has on an Adidas windbreaker

jacket with stonewashed blue jeans that look like they’re from the 80s. “She lives in Belarus. Isn’t she something?” A pause, he stares at the photo. “My baby.”

I don’t respond. His hands twitch as he puts away the phone and leans back in his seat. Time passes. He has

his seat reclined, his head dangling to the side, his eyes closed, mouth slightly open. I draw uneven lines and hear jazz coming from the headphones. I change the station to some R&B. I change the station to some classical. Then some country. I go back to jazz. The guy next to me is talking. His voice is low and constant. I can’t make out words. His hands are moving and I realize he has been saying something. Occasionally he looks at me and pauses. He looks away and his hands begin moving again. A stewardess walks by. I turn down the headphones.

“It’s like gravity,” he says. I nod. “You have a reach, like your arms… it holds you down, regardless.” I keep nodding. He keeps talking. I ask him to get me a vodka tonic. The stewardess holds the vodka tonic out

in front of me but I say it’s for him. The stewardess hands him the drink. He hands me the drink. “International flight. Drink all you want,” the stewardess says and walks off. “When I was your age – you must be in your early twenties, right?”

I nod. “I used to want to be so many things. A real-estate business owner. An airplane engineer. A

contractor. But you know what…” He drinks his gin and looks at me from the corner of his eye. “But your hands can only reach so far. You can only hold so much.” He stretches out his arms. “You see everything in front of you but you can’t get it all.”

I drink from my vodka. “Are you following me, kid?” A pause. “But listen, if there is anything that is certain, it is what

is between people. You know, family and friends, and most of all a girl you can call yours. I found my baby…” He is looking at the picture of the girl in the phone. “I found her where I never thought I would find her – online. Haha.” Nothing is said for a few moments. “Everything else is just chatter.” Beat. “You got a girl, kid? You got a picture of her?”

I drink my vodka again and shake my head side to side and cough. “So you may want to be an illustrator now but remember it’s not easy. You gotta figure

some….” I turn up the volume. I pull out my orange bottle and shake it and put it next to the magazine

on the meal tray unfolded from the seat ahead of me. The guy’s arm is leaning against mine. I lean towards the window more and stare at the lines. The center is almost fully filled in with black, and from within this blackness are shapes that I didn’t notice before, shapes made of lines and reaching out to the edges of the page that align with other lines to form large uneven rectangles and bars, created unintentionally as if they just happened by themselves.

I have the two guys in my row move, waking up the one at the end so that he seems disoriented as he opens his eyes and darts up in his seat – so that I can get up and walk towards the back. The joints in my legs and arms pop and crack with each step. The hum of the engines is consistent and only occasionally changes tones. The lights are out. Bodies lay in darkness, covered with blankets, their heads leaning and tilted, arms outstretched and limp. Some faces have a bluish yellow glow moving across their contours. Some eyes are open and attentive, watching the glow move, following it closely, their faces reacting. And again, pools of darkness where facial features disappear and are replaced with shapes of bodies.

I place the pills on the counter and crush them with my thumb. I take a piss and feel bumps on my penis and notice redness that is only getting worse. I look more closely and don’t know what I’m looking at but have a feeling it is not healthy. I wet my hands and wipe my face and run my hands through my hair while looking closely at my face and around my eyes where the skin looks more loose and limp, less a part of me and more like the weathered skin of some fieldworker. My eyelids are sinking down at the sides. My lips are cracked and dry. I put my nose to the crushed little piles and take them just as fast as I get out and walk back up the aisle towards my seat, wait for the guys to get back up, so that I can sit back down again. I was supposed to pick up more pills and never got to it. Sitting down I notice my mom’s head turning around and looking back from a few aisles up ahead until we make eye contact. She waves.

“You have some, too?” I ask what. “The orange case.”

“It’s to help me sleep.” “Mine, too.”

seventy one The buildings move by and the wind pushes my back and head and my feet shuffle across the snow covered cobblestones. An acid feeling comes over my thighs and calves. The snow has stopped coming down. During the day while walking with my mom around what might be these same streets my vision was filtered with a sheet of white snow that came down in angles. She bought postcards but said she won’t be able to send them because the post office was closed because of some suspected bomb found or at least that is what some passerby said. We bought crepes from a portable crepe stand under a large umbrella which is where she mentioned how Roman hasn’t sent a postcard but that she is sure it’ll come. This is the first time she has ever said anything to me about Roman since after he disappeared. We silently ate crepes like all the other people under the large umbrella, watching white snow fall. I finished my crepe and asked a person next to me for a cigarette. They either didn’t hear me or didn’t understand. I said forget it. They said what.

Streets covered white. The wind picks up but is calmed when I’m up against the buildings. I have two shirts on, Calvin Klein jeans over silk long johns, a hooded sweatshirt, a puffy jacket with a hood with a fake fur trim, a wool scarf that wraps around twice, and a beanie tucked under my two hoods. My eyes sting with each gust of cold air. I walk with my head down, barely keeping my eyes open, just getting glimpses of the cobblestone under my feet. Walking down a poorly lit narrow street the buildings block most of the wind but not all. A cigarette store and two guys standing outside it, leaning against a glass window, one smoking, the other talking on a cell. They have large jeans hanging to their knees and hats worn sideways. In English one of them tells me to come closer. I keep walking. He yells good stuff, friend. Wind is picking up bags and newspapers and moving them out in the distance and up into the air.

Turning a corner I come across a noise filled, lit up restaurant. People sit shoulder to shoulder, smoking cigarettes, eating, and from this restaurant it’s the murmur of talking and some doo wop American music and forks hitting plates that makes me notice that I’m hungry and should have eaten something when I was out with my mom and grandparents earlier. The closer I get to the window, the warmer it is. People begin looking at me. They stop talking and eating and they look up until a waiter standing near a table sees me and walks towards the window. He waves his wrist and snaps his hand to the side while nodding in the same direction. He’s an Arab. He is skinny under his large white collared shirt, and his dark hair is cut just short enough to comb in one direction. His sleeves are rolled up. His hand keeps moving, motioning to leave. He opens the door enough to lean out his torso. He yells something. The tearing of the wind and the music from inside blend with his French speech so I hear a factory.

I walk closer to the buildings, moving my feet faster and finally I stop at the next cigarette shop. I buy Marlboros, try to light one up just outside the store and this lasts for five minutes because the wind is making it impossible. I walk a few more blocks until I’m led to an opening, by a river. I have no more pills. My eyes and mouth are dry. I keep rolling my tongue in my throat to try to pull spit up from the back of my mouth and I keep blinking so that tears will come out of my eyes which are dry and hurt when I blink. There is nothing. The wind has slowed down almost enough to call it stillness. A few cars pass by. One car has no hubcaps, and I realize I’ve seen many cars with no hubcaps during the day – and from this one car’s exhaust black smoke rolls out against the ground. It honks as I take a step into the street.

I walk down steps just below the level of the street, along the river, where the air is completely still. I’m chain smoking now and walking along the ledge, looking down below where the water is moving, swirling in spots like wakes of something that just disappeared. Moving downstream.

A few guys are drinking under a shady walkway near some steps leading up to the street. They all have thin jean jackets over sweaters except for one guy who has on a turtleneck. Their jeans are tight and tapered at the ankles. They are passing around and swigging from a bottle in a paper bag. I look down as I walk by. One guy says something. I keep walking. He comes up to me and he says something but I don’t know what he’s saying. It’s French and it starts to sound angry. He

motions a cigarette to his mouth. Another guy comes up. This guy has on his head a small beanie exposing his red face and ears. He seems more important than the others. He walks up slowly. He says something, maybe asking me if I speak French. I say no French twice. He says more and for some reason I hear something similar to where? I reply America. He pauses and then says Americano? I nod. He quietly speaks to the guy next to him and turns around to the other guys and he says Americano. The guys begin to laugh. They get up and walk towards me. My back is facing the river. One hand is in my pocket, the other holding the cigarette. One guy says something to the guy with the beanie who looks at me and then looks at the water behind me, clearly, so that I know what he means and he also knows this. They are standing before me in a half circle.

“Like America? American good you?” My beating heart skips and I inhale at the cigarette, sucking in the sharp cold air with it. My

fist clenches in my jacket pocket. I take another drag and realize my legs are shaking. “You hate us?” “Hate?” I say.

A beat. I say my family is from Espana. I say Espana again. He repeats this, Espana. One of the other guys says Espana. They laugh. One of them walks

up to me and puts his arm around me, taking a swig from the bag. He has a scar on his chin that goes down to his neck and his teeth are crooked. He passes the bottle to the guy with the beanie.

“You love France art. Notre Dame?” He points at the cathedral across the river. “It’s old. It’s in books,” I say. The guy with the beanie speaks, swigs the bag. He says in broken English that he sees the

Notre Dame everyday and as much as he drinks in front of it it never does anything new. It just sits there and does nothing and people come from all over the world to take pictures in front of it. He passes to me the bottle so I take a swig at it and feel a thick liquid coat my throat with warmth until it reaches my stomach, making my stomach turn and burn. The guy with the beanie says something about America and about Spain.

One of them says “Hola, como estas?” They all laugh. Another says, “How you are?” And laughs. The bottle is taken from my hand. I say slowly that I have friends in America and we drink and

smoke just like they do. The beanie guy asks me about McDonalds and Britney Spears, if I like them, and he says shit

shit shit after this and then says something that sounds like murd a few times. The one with the scar says something in French and then says Michael Jackson as he grabs his crotch and shouts. They all laugh. I throw the cigarette butt in the river. One guy has been standing farther away, looking at me, doing nothing but smiling and staring. He walks up to me and stands before me for a moment. His friends become quiet. He is the biggest one of them, standing a head taller than me. He inhales a deep and slow breath and asks for a cigarette. He says French things and laughs. I give him a cigarette. The other guys all ask for cigarettes. And the big one motions for more. I give them all of my smokes except for the one behind my ear under the beanie. I take a swig of the bag. They tell me to take another. Liquid rolls down my chin. They laugh and one of them hits my arm and laughs more.

“Hash?” “Hash, yeah.” “Wanna hash?” he says. From his pocket the guy with the beanie pulls out a hard, dark cube. I

hold it in my hand. The guy with the scar pulls out from his pocket a crumpled rolling paper and hands it to me. I take another swig and they call me okay and I shake hands with them. They walk off, laughing.

I thumb the cube in my pocket, walking closer to the cathedral. I sit on a bench facing the entrance of the old structure. The wind is calm. I feel bass hitting, coming from somewhere in the distance from in between the buildings. My breath is visible on the air. I slouch down, pull out the lighter, rolling paper, the dark cube, and under the cover of my jacket put the flame to the cube so that it heats up and flakes off onto the paper. The cube is turning more waxy than flaky. My hands keep shaking, causing any flakes to fall in my palm just by the flame. The flame goes out. Again I light the flame and put it just by the dark cube. I finally break the cube apart enough to mix it with the tobacco out of my last cigarette. I roll the paper twice.

The lights pointing on the cathedral cast deep shadows in the crevices and grooves of the stones in place giving an air of authority that seems to be judging me on account of centuries of transience. Just by the entrance there are two guys, one black and one white, sitting on a concrete planter, drinking from a Coke bottle. A wind wheezes and rolls off my clothes and causes a tethering

sound. A faint siren in the background is becoming louder. The white guy is standing and moving his hands around wildly, saying something to the guy sitting and rocking back and forth with his hand swaying with his rocking. The sound becomes clear and I hear the white guy rapping in French and the black guy is making beats with his mouth. The siren passes down the street. People are laughing in the distance and the bass trembles on my chest. I can’t get the paper to hold together. The tobacco keeps coming out the sides into my palm. The unrolled joint keeps coming apart in my hand. A guy in a fancy long black coat slowly walks ahead of me. I put one hand over the other to cover up the unrolled joint. He walks to a garbage can nearby and stands still and looks to his left at the guys rapping, then looks at me. I look away. A moment passes and he lights a cigarette and stares off in the distance. I try to roll the joint again and after a few attempts the guy with the coat walks over to me, motions his hand, as though to say, let me try. I pour the tobacco into his palm. He has a dark beard and long dark hair. With one hand he smokes his cigarette and with the other he mixes the tobacco with the flakes of hash, and he rolls a joint, then takes my lighter and lights the joint and takes one slow drag after another. After each drag he sucks in air through his teeth. He finally hands me the joint, nods and walks away. I sit and smoke and stare at the details in the cathedral’s doors and arches.

A siren sounds and a police truck drives up to the street to my left and stops. The guys who were rapping walk away. The cops get out of the truck and stand over a body lying in the street. One of the cops moves the body with his foot. The body shrugs. The cops pull him up with no effort and put him in the truck. They drive off as I notice the cherry of the hidden joint is out. I can’t find the lighter in any of my pockets.

I walk towards the river and bridge; the wind blows my beanie off into the water. I watch it float off into darkness. I spit and watch the spit slowly sink through the air on its way down to the water, changing course because of the wind, then it hits the water and makes little ripples that float downstream of the beanie’s path.

I hear a guitar. I cross the bridge and just below the steps there is a guy shrouded in light from the street lamp. He’s playing guitar and he is wearing only a thin sweater. Steam is coming off his body in curls. His head is moving with the music and pivoting and rolling on his neck. His eyes are closed and his hands move on the strings. I walk a few steps lower and see a girl in a thick trench coat chanting to the music and gyrating her hips and arms in rhythm by a trashcan with a fire burning inside. The wind makes the flames come out in random burst, spinning waves up towards the sky until they branch out and whips back down. The girl’s long hair and coat are caught by the wind and move like the fire, flaring and flailing and retracting over and over. I take a few steps down to the walkway. Three girls are dancing and humming along to the guitar. Their arms are swaying out to their sides like they’re high and flying. The light of the fire moves across their faces and bodies and I ask one of them for a lighter. She nods side to side and looks at me blankly and comes closer to me and grabs me with both her arms and holds me while dancing, and the wind presses us together even more. She pulls me closer and pulls off my hood and holds my head and she looks at me and I see the reflection of the flames and of myself in her eyes. She pulls me closer to the fire so that the skin on my hands and face become hot. I’m no longer shaking or cold. And in this moment, as our bodies move with the music, her head leans against my shoulder and for a few minutes or maybe just a quick second magnified to last her body sinks into all the layers of clothes between us and in this embrace I feel what could be comfort or what comfort should resemble and it is unfamiliar and frightening and beautiful.

Across the street towards the alley I follow the bass sound. The beat gets louder and vibrates harder on my chest and face. I’m out of pills. On the side of an old brick building is a poster with a black and white outlined face with the word OBEY. The narrow and empty cobblestone streets are covered in ice up along the buildings. I take a left turn towards the bass. Electronic music blends with the beats and percussion. I pass two restaurants filled with people, I pass a closed cigarette shop and boarded up newspaper stands where men in dirty jackets huddle together. I motion a lighter with my hand but they grunt and one of them starts yelling something I don’t understand so I continue walking. Red and blue and white lights come from a window one floor up in the building. I don’t see any entrance or doors. Everything is muted next to the sound of hard electronic sounds. The bass is shaking my eyes and brain. I stand under the window and see the silhouettes of bodies jumping and dancing and arms shaking and pumping on the building nearby illuminated by the changing colors.

I walk down the street and try to push open doors but every one of them is locked and there are no signs or people nearby so I have no clue how to get upstairs to the party. The wind picks up and pulls my hood off my head so that a stinging and burning coolness comes across my face and

neck and ears. It is suddenly colder than before. I cover my head with my hood and huddle up against the building. The wind picks up harder and brings down bits of snow from the sky at an angle. My breath is almost white against the darkness of the street and stone buildings so I walk around the building where there might be an entrance. I check a few more doors but to no avail. I feel the unfinished joint in my pocket and then fold my arms against myself and lean against a pillar of the building which is just barely blocking some of the wind and snow now coming down harder. The bass from around the building is still beating gently against my body and chest with the rhythm of my heart. My knees are shaking from the cold getting through all my layers. I think I fall asleep for a few minutes. I open my eyes and see my shoes covered in snow and snow has gathered on my folded arms. A hatchback with no hub caps is pulled over in front of me. Someone inside is asking something. He motions to come closer. Techno is coming from the car and I can tell it is a cheap system by the way the treble cracks and how there is no bass felt. I walk up to the window and see a girl lying in the back seat with her eyes closed, and the driver, in English, with some accent, he says, got fire? I say no, do you? And I pull out the joint. He then pulls out a lighter and lights it so that I have to lean in to the warm space of the car to put the joint to the flame.

I take a few drags and pass the joint to him. The heater is on full blast and is causing the feeling to come back to my fingers and face. He has a dark face with stubble and dark eyes I can’t see because of the shadows in the car though I imagine Nate’s face for a moment, as though Nate had turned into someone else and that time had split so that everything could play itself out in spite of whatever anyone wanted or did – and his face again changes and readjusts to resemble Roman’s and just then he turns to me and says get away to find out and when I say what? the shadow shifts and uncovers the face of my father but my father doesn’t see me, doesn’t look at me, and only drives and checks the mirrors when he needs to turn and stops at lights when they are red and the whole time he is there, only appears to be there but really isn’t...

He says nothing and sits still against the fast music. The heater is blowing hot air at my face. I loosen my scarf and unbutton my jacket. We’re turning down streets. He takes three drags from the joint and then passes to me the roach that is left. He pulls a bottle from under his seat, puts it to his mouth, swigs, and then motions it to me. He turns to look my way to reveal a deep smile and yellowish teeth. I drink it and feel a burning down my throat, coating my insides and going down to my stomach, burning and itching, making me cough. He laughs silently and pats my leg twice, slowly and says, we’re going to have fun, and keeps driving forward.